Resident Evil: The Goliath Protocol
by Lady Frost1
Summary: CHAPTER FOUR HAS SOME SEXUAL CONTENT AND LANGUAGE . It focuses around Leon and other characters from all RE games. Come in and take a peek and tell me what you think. If its well received I'll ad more. THANK YOU. CHAPTERS 4-5 are UP!
1. Default Chapter

RESIDENT EVIL: THE GOLIATH PROTOCOL  
  
ONE:  
Nothing bleeds worse then a shallow wound.  
  
The sand was gilded white by the caressing fall of moonlight which drifted over the world in a blanket of silver kisses. The waves, frothy and strong at high tide, rolled over your skin in a chilling slap.  
From where he sat, not far from the summer porch he had built with his own two hands, with his feet ankle deep in the coming tide, ex-police officer Leon Scott Kennedy could only admire the way the starless sky seemed to dance and twirl around the shining molten moon.   
In his hand he held a high ball glass filled three fingers deep with Chevas Regal. The spill of flickering yellow from the porch light told him that Claire was still inside; packing.  
The low creak of the rusty hinges on the porch door indicated that she had left the house and was slowly crossing the sand toward where he sat. His skin had long since turned cold with the chill of Autumn air, the faded grey RPD tee-shirt worn ragged at the shoulders and sporting a jagged hole on one side where once upon a time, one of Umbrella's freak creations had tried to spill his intestines on the ground. The jeans he sat in were so old that they clung to his body like a second skin, the seams starting to pull apart in some places and the hems little more then strings and swatches of ratty cloth.  
Claire's feet came into view on his right side, those familiar brown boots that she was so fond of filling his peripheral vision like a bad omen. He waited silently until she had lowered herself into a crouch a little infront and to one side of him, trying to get him to look at her.  
"Well,"She said finally when he continued to stare at the inky darkness of the Pacific Ocean,"Thats the last of it."  
As if it were the most unimportant thing in the world, he turned his gaze toward her, taking in her red turtleneck sweatshirt and khaki pants, the curl of her recently cut her, just long enough now to grace the bottom of her chin. Her coffee colored eyes studied him with a touch of sadness and alot of pity.  
"I'm not sure what's happening with you Leon."She said softly and then shook her head because they had been having this same conversation for six months now. He couldn't remember the last time they had been in the same room without an arguement beginning and one of them storming out, "But I still love you and-"  
With something that was a cross between a laugh and a scoff, Leon rolled his eyes and looked up at the sky, "If you love me Claire, then stay."  
But she was already shaking her head and climbing to her feet, "I can't. You know I can't." She smoothed her hands down her hips, a nervous gesture that he had come to expect when they argued, "You've got shit you need to get in order. And me being here isn't helping you."  
Leon said nothing, simply went back to staring out into the darkness.  
With a sigh, Claire leaned down and touched his hair, smoothing the dark auburn mass back from his high cheekboned, much too handsome face. His hair was slick with sweat and oily from days of being unwashed but he was still as striking, still as breath catchingly handsome as he had ever been. There was a faded white scar on his forehead that streaked jaggedly down over his left eyebrow, giving him the look of a warrior. Something low in Claire's body clenched while looking at him. Six months of fighting and anger hadn't changed how much her body wanted him.  
She was reluctant to leave him here, sitting on the beach. She knew that Leon's father had sat on the beach the night his wife had left with his three year old son and then walked inside and swallowed a bottle of pain killers. Leon liked to see this as his legacy, his destiny to follow in those bloody foot steps.  
Claire liked to believe that Leon was made of stronger stuff but staring into those glassy blue eyes, she was still afraid for him.   
He listened until he heard the dull purr of her motorcycle and the peel of her tires as she pulled away and then Leon Kennedy gained his feet, downed his Scotch and walked slowly up the rickety porch steps until he was standing in front of the glass coffee table in the living room. The three thousand dollar useless glass coffee table that Claire had insisted on getting.  
Lying on the table was his father's Cougar Magnum, recently cleaned and sharing space with six rounds all standing up and saluting him. Leon picked up the beloved gun, spun the empty chamber and then loaded it with one live round. With a flick of his wrist, he snapped the chamber closed, cocked the hammer and sat down on the sofa, the Cougar cradled in his lap like a child.  
Very slowly, Leon looked around his small beach side home and saw nothing that would even hint that a woman had lived with him for over a year. Claire had taken everything. There were no girly touches, no articles of female clothing, nothing left that had been hers.  
Lifting the Magnum, Leon pressed the cold steel muzzle into his temple and closed his eyes, his finger hovering over the trigger. It was his right, to end it here and now. He had nothing to live for anymore.  
He had seen the rise and fall of the corporate giant Umbrella Pharmeceuticals, had watched his friends fall in and out of love, had seen Raccoon City burned to ash and watched hordes of shambling monsters consume flesh and blood off his dying comrades. He had seen alot. He had lived his life.  
He clenched his eyes shut, unable to block the image of the William Birkin from his mind. The gangling monster that he had become, the giant deformed eye in his shoulder staring at him. The nightmares woke him constantly, night after night, blood and gore and the moment when the claws had bisected his chest and left his face forever marked.  
Holding his eyes closed, Leon eased his finger down on the trigger.  
In the distance, a sea gull screamed startled from it's slumber by the loud rappaport of a fired gun. The waves licked at the sand, the moon shone brightly. And the white flash of light in the window of Leon Kennedy's home was lost to the wind, the night, and the eerie silence that followed that one ominous shot.  
  
***********************************  
Chris Redfield eased off the gas after the third time Jill drove her finger nails into his arm and made a sound surprisingly similar to a squeak. He glanced at her averted profile quickly, smiling wickedly to himself at the sallow color her skin had become.  
Usually the solid one of the crowd, Chris did have one vice. The old testosterone driven need for speed. He admitted to having a hard on for a fast car with a top of the line engine.  
"Christopher,"Jill admonished as Chris made a sharp left onto Leon's street, barely swirving around a mini van coming from the opposite direction, "If you kill me after I spent all that money on a damn wedding dress, I swear before god that I will come back and rape your bones."  
Chris bobbled his eyebrows suggestively and Jill couldn't keep herself from laughing. They had been engaged for nearly six months and now, the week before their wedding, Chris had to admit that he had finally chosen a girl that made him feel like he could do anything. Jill was the perfect opposite of him. They never said five words to each other without arguing and then ultimately making love. It was the ideal relationship for both of them. They were so in love that it made others sick.  
The perfectly plumbed driveway of Leon's house revealed his sun bleached Trans Am and proved that he was indeed home. Chris's sister Claire's tear filled phone call that morning had sent the two of them running to be sure her erst while ex hadn't done anything to harm himself. No one had heard a peep out of Leon in over a week. It was longest they had gone without speaking to him in over two years.  
Pulling into the driveway alongside the Trans Am, Jill slid out onto the steaming pavement and started up the walkway to the front stoop. She had to admit that Leon's house was obviously the result of feminine wiles. There was the touch of a woman's hand in the flower box of mums beside the stoop and the thriving palm trees jutting strongly near the side of the house. Claire had worked magic with this once bachelors pad in the year she had lived here.  
Chris looked at the flowers and tried not to grimace. In his opinion there was nothing worse then letting a woman plant mums in your yard. They were stinky, bee attracting, ugly colored blooms. When Jill had suggested getting yellow ones for their yard, Chris had vowed to move out if she did. Obviously Leon hadn't been quite so fortunate with Claire.  
Jill knocked once on the screen door and laughed as Chris held his nose while passing the mums. They waited in the hot afternoon sun for nearly ten minutes before Jill broke out her lock pick tools and went to work.  
It wasn't the first time her old skills had been needed to get into a house. Often times she would forget her house key while Chris was at work and ended up effectively locking herself out which culminated in her breaking into her own home.  
Leon's lock was a little more tricky then their own and it took Jill another ten minutes to get the bolt to give.   
Chris walked into the house first, noting that it was excessively warm in the dark interior. Obviously Leon hadn't bothered to open any windows in his self imposed exile. The front hallway was littered with beer cans and several empty bottles of Scotch. Dirty laundry lay crumpled along the hard wood floors like butterflies marking the line of death.  
Chris, having lived as a bachelor for many years himself, walked over and around the mess and left Jill to clean up behind him. He heard her muttering to herself about men being pigs as he turned into the living room.  
On the table, Chris saw several live rounds and several more scattered around the plush grey carpet on the living room floor. Lying half empty on the floor was a fifth of vodka which was leaking endlessly onto a pair of crumpled boxer shorts.  
Chris had to shake his head at all the dirty dishes scattered over the coffee table and sofa. A congealing glass of milk sported some soft growing green fungus and something that resembled what might have once been cheese.  
Jill's voice came from down the hallway in the bedroom, "Gee-e-zus."  
Following her voice, Chris came in to find her staring open mouthed at a pool of blood about two feet wide at the base of the door and a smeared bloody hand print marking the door knob and part of the door.  
For the first time, Chris was seriously concerned. He scanned the room quickly, one hand freeing his side arm from it's holster. It was very seldom that he was without it these days. Especially since the reported closing of all plants in cooperation with Umbrella.  
A Cougar Magnum lay discarded near the foot of the rumpled king sized bed in the middle of the room, the sheets of the bed liberally stained with blood. The trail of blood from the pool on the floor lead off to the right and stopped at the closed door of the bathroom.  
Jill locked eyes with Chris and stepped back, letting him precede her into the room, gun pointing at the ceiling in preparation.  
A loud groan had them both halting at the door to the bathroom. It sounded eerily familiar, like the hungry, terrible wails of the flesh eating corpses they had fought so often, so many years ago.  
Chris motioned for her to back away from the door and Jill obeyed moving backward until he had a clear space around him to maneuver.  
Taking a deep breath, Chris lifted his foot and slammed it into the door throwing it wide with a scream of hinges.   
"Fuck!"The door hit the opposite wall after knocking Leon sideways and throwing him into the empty bath tub where he whacked his head on the cold porcelain.  
"Fucking shit,"Leon muttered to himself again, grasping his aching head and trying to get to his feet to face his assailants.  
"Leon!"Jill cried, rushing past Chris to help Leon extract himself from the tub, "We thought you'd been eaten by zombies!"  
Leon felt her soft hands on his head and arm, easing him up from his half sprawled state,"Jesus you could have knocked first Redfield."  
Chris felt a grin spread over his face at the angry tone,"Sorry buddy. Old habit."  
Leon's stomach rebelled and he said, "Right right." Two seconds before he lost his lunch, vomitting everything into the toilet.  
"Oh Leon,"Jill crooned ,holding his greasy hair back from his forehead, "Chris wet a wash cloth."  
Obeying her, Chris couldn't help smiling smugly at his friend's misery, "Hitting the bottle a little hard eh Kennedy?"  
Jill pressed the cool compress to the back of his neck and Leon heaved once before saying, "What are you two doing here?"  
"We heard you were taking Claire's leaving hard."Jill commented calmly, leaning back as Leon pulled away from the toilet and flushed it.  
"Yeah well I was doing okay until Captain Commando knocked my brains out."  
Chris smiled and kneeled down to look at him, "You know Leon, sometimes you are an ungrateful prick."  
"Yeah yeah."  
"Leon, you're bleeding!"Jill exclaimed, yanking his filthy shirt up and exposing the bloody patch on his upper thigh.  
Leon grunted and pulled himself to his feet, swaying hard enough to grab the wall for support, "Yeah I had a little accident with the Magnum."  
They both stared at him incredously until he said, "I shot the picture of Claire and I off the wall while I was piss drunk. Then stumbled over to check it out, tripped on the damn coffee table in the dark and fell down into the broken glass. When I came to I was lying in a pool of my own blood in the door way of my room. I stumbled in here and thats when you found me. I was trying to make sure I didn't have a concussion. Though I'm pretty sure I do now thanks to the cast iron kicker over there."  
Jill shook her head and held him steady as he peeled his rank, sweat stained shirt of his body and threw it into the over flowing hamper by the door.  
She looked at Chris and said, "Go and put on a pot of coffee would you? I'm going to run Leon a bath."  
"I don't want to take a bath,"Leon protested weakly.  
"You stink dude,"Chris replied, shaking his head, "Let the woman work her magic and do what she says. If I had a choice, I'd take you into the back yard with some dish detergent and a hose."  
Leon gave him a dirty look but reluctantly agreed.  
Chris left to try to clean up some of the mess that Leon had left in his destructive wake and left Jill to her quiet minstrations.  
Leon sat shirtless on the closed toilet seat and let Jill clean the cut on his forehead near his hairline with alchohol and cover it with a moisture proof swatch of gauze. Behind them the bathtub cast steaming clouds of moisture into the air as the faucet poured hot water into the cool green porcelain.  
"I don't suppose it's any of my business to ask,"Jill began in that softly accented drawl of hers,"But what are you doing to yourself?"  
Leon shrugged, careful not to move his head too much as she secured the bandage and then set to work cleaning the slivers of glass from the cuts on his chest. "I don't know. I've just fallen into this funk lately. I mean my mother had that stroke about six months ago and now she's in a nursing home. Claire left me. I lost my job. I'm fucking eye level in shit and sinking fast."  
Jill smiled up at him from her position of kneeling on the floor, "Come on Leon. I know it's been rough lately but we all love you and were here for you. You don't have to go through this with your only support being a bottle of twelve year old Scotch."  
"I know,"he admitted for the first time feeling a little ashamed of the way he had been handling things.  
Jill smiled again and stood up, patting his shoulder once,"Soak in that bath tub until the ache in your head starts to go away and then take a nice hot shower. Chris and I will have this place cleaned up in a jiffy."  
Leon watched her walk toward the open door of the bathroom, admitting not for the first time how lucky Chris Redfield was to have snagged such a good woman. "I will. Jill?"  
"Yes?"  
"Thank you."  
She walked back to him and placed a soft kiss on his forehead. "Get better sweetie. That'll be all the thanks I need."  
  
*************************************  
  
Ten o'clock that night found Chris and Leon parking Chris's sleek red Jaguar into the last open spot of the Centennial Gentlemen's Club. It had been Chris's hairbrained idea to go out that night and scope out naked women swinging around poles. The only reason Leon had agreed to it was because it seemed to make Chris happy.  
So here they were dressed to the nines in expensive clothing that neither one of them would probably ever wear again and walking into a club where only high rollers were usually welcome.  
"Chris Redfield you old dog!"  
Barry Burton's booming voice floated over to them from across the parking lot where the six foot tall two hundred and seventy five pound giant stood smoking a cigarette with Carlos Oliveira. Carlos was some sort of mixed blood, a cross between something obviously latino and obviously Indian.  
The last time Leon had seen Carlos had been at Chris and Jill's engagement party several months before. He had to admit that Carlos looked smashing in his black silk shirt and slacks. Something about his smooth demeanor had always made Leon want to grit his teeth and punch him in that handsome, unblemished face. Or maybe it was the way Carlos had practically hung on Claire's every word at the engagement party. Yeah, that was probably it.  
"Leon!"Barry grumbled, embracing the smaller man in a giant bear hug, "How ya been?"  
"Okay."  
"Barry Burton you over grown ape!"Chris whooped and hugged the red bearded giant, "Hows Kathy and the kids?"  
"Beautiful,"Barry admitted, grinning, "Growing up to be just like their mother."  
"Carlos,"Chris greeted, shaking the other man's hand, "How you doing buddy?"  
"Muy bueno,"Carlos commented in spanish and seemed to have trouble meeting Leon's eyes when they shook hands as well.  
"Well boys,"Barry said easily,"Let's get this show on the road."  
The four of them walked through the revolving glass doors of the Centennial Club and took in the plush carpeting, the burnished gold fixtures and the class in one fell sweep.  
Their hostess was an astonishingly exotic oriental beauty with a quick smile and smiling demeanor. She lead them up the soft gold carpeting of the foyer staircase to a balcony seat and offered them drinks.  
"Stolichnaya,"Chris told her, spouting off his favorite vodka.  
"Just a Heineken for me, darling,"Barry told her, grinning.  
"Me too,"Carlos told her, smiling that dashing smile that made Leon want to kick him.  
"Coke please,"Leon said when she turned her dark gaze to him. She smiled politely and went to fetch their order.  
Their coversation was both bouyant and fun. None of them mentioned anything concering work or Umbrella. They talked of Chris's up coming wedding, Barry's kids and what car was the fastest on the market.  
They enjoyed the exotic dancing of the strippers on the mirrored stage on the lower level and slipped twenty dollar bills into the waitress's G-string when she came with their drinks.  
After about an hour of this good humored melee, Leon excused himself to use the restroom and Chris joined him, noting that some of the color had returned to his friends cheeks in the time that had been there.  
Leon looked a little more his charming self.  
They used the posh, neon red lighted urinals in the mens rooms and were just getting ready to go back to the balcony when she walked into the foyer.  
Chris said from beside Leon, "Good god almighty."  
And Leon found himself thinking something along the same line.  
The woman in question was about five six and built like a Playboy centerfold. Her hair, a curling, shining mass of chestnut beauty fell around her shoulders and halfway down her back in perfectly coiffed curls and corkscrews. Her skin, tanned the color of good caramel, seemed to glow in the over head lighting of the crystal chandelier and off set her perfectly arched brows and the burning jade green of her thickly lashed eyes.  
She stopped to speak with the oriental hostess for a moment and then turned to come toward the stairway where they stood. She was dressed in a floor length gown of scarlett silk, liberally sprinkled with a shimmering sheen of sparkles. As she approached, Leon noticed that the gown was actually nearly transparent red cloth with darker red at the groin and breasts of the outfit. It was sexy without being sleazy. Something he knew Claire would rather be dead then wear.  
She lifted her head and smiled at them as she approached, "Hello."  
Her voice was soft and accented, something southern and lilting. Chris was tongue tied but Leon answered, "Hello."  
"Do you mind if I pass you?" She asked, smiling as if she found their amourous looks amusing.  
Chris mumbled something that sounded suspisciously like gibberish and stepped aside but Leon held his ground, determined to save something suave to her.  
"I'm Leon Kennedy."  
She tilted her to head to one side, studying him like a curious dog. "Officer Kennedy. I've heard a lot about you."  
Shocked that she recognized his name, he sputtered, "How-uh-how did--you..um.."  
The woman stepped forward and was invading the hell out of his personal space but it didn't matter because he wanted her there. She smiled at him and said, "I saw your picture in the paper about a year ago. When you saved those kids from that burning pre school."  
He remembered now. The pre school had caught fire after an employer had thrown a still smoking cigarette in a bin of construction paper. His precinct was the first to respond to the distressed call. He had saved three or four children from where they had been trapped on the second floor. His reward had been a citation for bravery, second degree burns on his forearms, smoke inhalation and his picture in the papers. It was amazing that she remembered something that old.  
Leon was impressed and flattered. The woman smiled at him and he replied, "You have a good memory Miss..."  
"Blade. Jordan Blade."  
Jordan. It was appropriate. Vaguely southern. He said, "Miss Blade. It's nice to meet you. Though regrettably it isn't Officer Kennedy anymore. It's just plain old Leon."  
Jordan smiled at him, those full pink lips showing perfect straight white teeth. Leon felt like someone had smacked him between the eyes with a hammer. She was so beautiful. "Well Leon, it's nice to meet you as well."  
He smiled at her like an infatuated idiot and Chris finally found his voice, "I'm Chris Redfield."  
Jordan graced his friend with a small smile and said, "Well gentlemen, I have a business to run here so I must be on my way but I'd like to chat more before you leave, Leon..if you're interested."  
Oh he was. Very very interested. Leon said, "I'd like that."  
"Good. Just ask Meng La at the front desk where to find me. I'll be around." And with that, she brushed by them and headed up the stairs leaving them both feeling a bit flustered.  
They stood there for a good minute after her swaying body disappeared up the stairs and then Chris said in a soft voice,"If you don't go for it man, I will have you commited for insanity."  
Leon was in hardy agreement.  
  
******************************************  
  
Claire Redfield awoke sweating and panting like she'd been running for her life. The soft cotton sheets slipped down off her small breasts, leaving them bare to the early morning light filtering in from the bay window beside the bed in which she slept.  
She had been dreaming again of Leon and Mr. X and Umbrella. She didn't have the recurring nightmare as often as Leon did but it came enough. Although usually it was vague and consisted of memories of Raccoon City. But tonight...tonight it had been explicit. Images of blood and gore and Leon's slack features, glossy eyes and swollen lips, his middle little more then ribbons of torn flesh and intestines. The place was familiar in the dream, something with pale blue walls and flashing lights. It set off warning bells in her head but she couldn't pin point exactely why.   
She pressed a hand against her chest, feeling the rapid thrumming of her racing heart. It was beating so hard she was certain that it was only a matter of moments before it exploded from her ribcage.  
Sweat dribbled down between her breasts, drawing Claire out of her thoughts and telling her that it was actually quite chilly in the bedroom; the window having been left open at half mast.   
Claire temporarily debated getting up to shut the window and then decided against it, leaning over instead to grab her cell phone which lay blinking on the nightstand beside the bed. She punched in Leon's house number without having to think about and took into consideration that it was nearly five in the morning. He might be grumpy at being woke so early but she couldn't help herself from making sure he was at least alright.  
The phone rang endlessly unanswered and Claire's heart sped up again in another moment of panic. Where was he? Was he passed out? Or not home? Or..dead? His answering machine came on after the fifth ring and informed her that she was being transfered to his cell phone. When had he gotten a cell phone? They'd only stopped seeing each other less then two months ago.  
There was a click and then the phone started ringing again but this time Leon answered after the second ring.   
"Kennedy."  
"Leon!"Claire gasped, relieved to hear his soft tones.  
There was a moment of static before he answered, "Claire."  
"You're okay."  
Another pause, longer this time. What was he doing?  
"Claire..it's almost five in the morning. Why are you calling me?"  
Why was she calling him? What could she say? I had a bad dream? But she decided to be honest.  
"I needed to hear your voice."  
Silence, static. And then, "You needed to hear my voice." He spoke so softly that she had strain to hear him.  
"Yes." And now she felt stupid. Like a fool for calling him. He probably thought she had lost her marbles.  
"I see." That silence again. So awful, filled with things unsaid. "Well if thats all...."  
And there it was; the opening, to say everything that had been left unfinished. Leon I miss you. Leon I still love you. Leon..I'm terrified you're going to die. Leon...I'm sorry. But instead she said, "I want to see you." And held her breath.  
It was nearly a minute before he answered, "When?"  
"Now." She replied, surprised because she hadn't realized that maybe her dream meant that she was terrified not of him dying, but of losing him forever. Hadn't realized it until that moment.  
"Where?"  
Her heart froze, she was scared now in a completely different way. Scared of saying the wrong thing, doing the wrong thing.  
"Can I come to the house?" She asked, speaking softly, whispering.  
A pause. The sound of his breathing, the fear again in the pit of her stomach. "Give me an hour."  
She waited, breathed deeply, "Okay."  
"Okay,"he answered and the dial tone buzzed in her ear.  
Claire waited a full minute before ending the connection and then laid the cell phone quietly on the table and slid back down in the bed to stare at the ceiling.  
Beside her, her companion awakened, slipping one arm around her stomach and rolling up on his side to face her. "Hi. Something wrong?" he greeted, watching her face in the early morning light.  
She forced a smile and looked into his eyes, "I have to go see Jill," She lied easily, not feeling in the least bit guilty. "She had a fight with Chris."  
Carlos Oliveira smiled at her, that dashing grin that had gotten her into trouble six months ago and still made her feel like a girl with her first crush. "You gotta go right now?" He asked, sliding his hand up her rib cage until he held her breast in the palm of his hand. "She can't wait..a little longer?"  
Claire felt her body turning toward him and hated herself for it. "I have to go Carlos," She said weakly and started to move away but his other hand had already dislodged the covers at her waist and had moved up her slim legs to palm the damp heat of her body, slick from sweat and mounting excitement.  
"Nada," he murmured, his lips sliding down her neck, placing hot wet kisses on her collarbone.  
"No Carlos,"She muttered, her eyes closing of their own volition, "I really have to go."  
He slipped two fingers up into her damp heat, watching her face and knowing the moment she forgot everything else but him.  
"Una momento por favor,"he whispered and claimed her mouth with his.  
Claire gasped and jerked her body against him, forgetting Leon and Raccoon City, lost in the grip of his body and her own desire.  
*************************************************  
Leon was sitting on the couch in the living room when he heard Claire's motorcycle pulled into the driveway and the engine being shut off. He hated himself for letting her come over. He knew it was a mistake.  
They couldn't fix things. Two months apart had only made him see the light. To make him accept that her leaving had been the best thing. Time apart was the right thing to do.  
Of course a month ago he may have seen things differently. He might have been on his hands and knees begging her to come back. And he knew most of his enlightenment was do to Jordan Blade.  
He'd spent every free moment he had with her. They'd gone for midnight drives together, spent countless hours sitting out on the beach talking, watching the tide come in. They'd even made a special trip down to see the grunion run and laughed as the slippery little creatures slid between their bare feet. In a month, he'd gone from suicidal to being on top of the world.  
Of course, at this point, they were just friends. Having never taken a step beyond holding hands and cuddling on the couch watching old Dracula movies. Their nights ended in a friendly good night hug and a promise to call the next day. But he wasn't fooling himself about how he felt about her. Jordan made him feel like maybe life had meaning after all.  
But he knew that being attracted to Jordan, enjoying her company didn't mean that he was over Claire. Maybe that's why he had allowed her to come over when she called. It wasn't like they had spoken to each other since Chris and Jill's wedding. And then they only exchanged cursory hellos and goodbyes. Maybe he needed to see if there was anything left there before he could pursue something more with Jordan.   
He listened to her foot steps on the front walk and the sound of her key in the door. Why hadn't he thought to get that back after she'd left him? But he knew why. He had been hoping she'd come back.  
And then she was standing there in front of him, dressed in a pink tank top that said "Princess Bitch" and a pair of tight black leather pants, like something out of a teen age porno flick.   
He waited for her to say something, her short dark hair slicked back off her face from the helmet she had perched on her hip. "Hi," She whispered and he was glad to see that she was as uneasy here as he was.  
"Hi,"He replied.  
"You got rid of my coffee table."  
It was such a ridiculous thing for her to say that he had to smile. "Yeah well I had an accident with a baseball bat after you left." He answered, unable to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.  
Actually he had taken his aluminum bat and turned the useless glass piece of shit into so much recycled garbage. But it wasn't like she needed the whole story anyway.  
Claire quirked a smile and glanced at the stained black oriental oak table that was now in it's place, "Yeah well this is nice too."  
"Thanks,"He put his half empty coffee mug on the coaster by her knee and decided to shit or get off the pot, "What do you want Claire? You got all your stuff."  
Her face lost it's smile, her eyes turning liquid. The soft light from the table lamp beside him made her seem almost child like in her obvious grief.  
"Don't you think this is hard for me?" She asked, "Coming here, seeing you again?"  
"Am I supposed to feel sorry for you now?" Leon replied calmly an edge of anger creeping into his weary voice, "You left me remember?"  
Claire shook her head, lifting the helmet and walking toward the door, "I didn't come here to have this arguement again."  
He stood up, following her, watching her prepare to put the helmet back on to leave, "Then why did you come?"  
She stopped, looked at him, her face angry now and still so sad, "I wanted to see you. See if you were alright."  
"Well as you can see I'm doing just fine."  
The anger on her face melted away, leaving only that gripping sadness behind. Her eyes filled with tears,"Yeah. I can see that."  
Shaking his head, Leon walked by her into the kitchen and Claire follwed him this time, putting her helmet on the kitchen table. "Who is she?" She asked and from the way his shoulders tensed, she knew she had hit the mark. "The woman you brought to the wedding?"  
Leon turned to face her slowly, his eyes stormy now, the color eerily similar to the ocean in the midst of a hurricane, "Jordan. Her name is Jordan. And she's just a friend."  
Something tight in Claire's chest uncurled with that statement and she found herself moving toward him before she could stop herself. The thought of Leon with someone else was almost more then she could bear. "Leon..."  
Leon went rigid at the first touch of her hands on him. She slid her arms around his chest, pressing her cheek into his collarbone against his smooth naked skin. He stood there with his hands balled into fists, his arms hanging loosely at his sides as she embraced him.  
"Leon,"She whispered,"I've missed you."  
And that was all it took. His body melted, his arms sliding around her back to press her tightly to him. He still loved her. He knew it the moment she had stood there before him, looking so vulnerable, so pale. He would probably always love her.  
He moved his body down until he was lifting her slightly, her cheek pressed against his as he held her. She started crying, her words meaning nothing and everything and Leon closed his eyes against his own anguish. Maybe they could work it out. That's what people in love did. Kept trying no matter what.  
She started kissing his cheeks, his closed eyelids, the bridge of his nose, crying softly the whole time, telling him she loved him and other endearments.   
Their mouths met, softly, brushing against each other as if afraid of the other's rejection. Leon slid his hands up her back and she put hers on either side of his face, deepening the kiss, holding tightly to him.  
Their tongues twined and his arms slid under her butt, lifting her up until their faces were even. It would all work out, he thought, somehow they'd make it work.  
He slid her shirt over head and kissed the rise of her breasts above the cotton cups her bra as they back down the hallway toward the bedroom. Her hands were already at the tie of his draw string sweat pants, fumbling down until she held him firm and hard in the palm of her hand.  
He groaned low in his throat as his knees connected with the mattress in the bedroom, spilling him backward onto the bed, Claire coming down with a bump atop him. Their mouths worked against each other and Leon freed one of her breasts from it's cup, his mouth going to suck on the tight nipple.  
Claire gasped and stroked him, the long, velvet length of him like silk lined steel in her hand. She whispered as he suckled her, "I'm sorry Leon. I love you. I'm sorry about Carlos..." Her spine bowed as his fingers found her through the tight leather pants, his thumb rubbing exactely where he knew she liked it.  
But just as he touched her, his body went still as if someone had reached inside of him and flipped a switch, shutting him down.   
Claire sat up as he rolled off of her, moving to the far side of the bed and fixing his pants which had been riding low on his hips. She watched him put his face in his hands and run his fingers through his hair.  
"What?" She gasped, breathing deeply to get control of herself, "What is it?"  
With his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands, Leon asked, "What about Carlos, Claire? What are you talking about?" But he already knew. Deep down, he already knew. He just had to hear her say it.  
In that moment, Claire realized that Leon had never known about her affair with Carlos. Not until that moment. Her body turned to ice and she fixed her bra sliding off the other side of the bed. "Oh Leon..I..I thought you knew. I thought Jill or Chris told you.."  
He looked at her as she came around the bed to stand beside him, "Told me what exactely?"  
"I-"  
"How long have you been sleeping with him?" He asked before she could answer. "Since we broke up?" And the look on her face told him everything he needed to know. "While we were together.."He whispered and the shock set in, blocking out the raging shame and anger that had initially been there.  
"Leon..."  
"How long?"He asked, staring into her stricken eyes, "How long?"  
"A couple of months before I left." She wouldn't lie to him anymore. He deserved the truth.  
They stared at each other for the space of several heart beats before he said, "Go. Leave the key and go."  
"Leon wait. Please listen to me. I can explain." But she knew from the cold look in his eyes that it was to late for that. Too late for anything.  
"Go Claire."  
Leon sat there on the bed and listened to her moving around the living room. Deja Vu set in as he heard her motorcycle roar to life and peel off down the street. He had been here before and yet it seemed like life times ago.   
But he knew now that it was over. There was no forgiveness in him. No fixing things. She was gone. He knew her key would be sitting on the table beside the door. She wasn't coming back. She was gone this time for good.  
He watched the first spot of sunlight fill the horizon in the distance, a warm golden orb creeping up to welcome the world into it's molten glory. The shock was wearing off now and leaving a coldness in it's a wake.  
He wasn't even angry at her. They were over. It was over.  
He listened to the caw of a sea gull somewhere in the distance and knew what he was going to do now.   
He was going to go see Jordan. In his heart he said a silent good bye to Claire and went out to embrace the new day. 


	2. Chapter 2

TWO:  
  
When it rains; it pours.  
  
The peel of the telephone had her sprinting naked into the kitchen and nearly tripping over an abandoned pair of shoes near the stove.  
  
Snapping up the receiver, she queried breathlessly, "Yes?"  
  
"When it rains; it pours."  
  
Her mind went blank, her eyes glazing and the automatic response slipped out unbidden, "Good thing I have an umbrella."  
  
"Have you achieved your mission objective?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"What is your report?"  
  
"I have collected samples from subjects V,B, O, R-One and R-Two."  
  
"And subject K?"  
  
There was a long pause, the silence both damning and incomplete. "Subject K is not relevant to the study."  
  
"That is not for you to decide. Get the sample."  
  
"I cannot."  
  
"You refuse to?"  
  
"Yes." More silence, the sound of death creeping up to look over your shoulder.  
  
"You have failed in your mission."  
  
"I know."  
  
"You have signed your own death warrant."  
  
"I know." And yet she sounded neither sorry nor afraid.  
  
"You leave us no choice but to settle the matter ourselves."  
  
"I am aware of that."  
  
"You do know what that means, don't you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"You have twenty four hours." It was the closest thing to a warning that she was going to get.  
  
The dial tone buzzed in her ear, the trilling, ominous sound of her own doom. She replaced the receiver and leaned her forehead against the refridgerator, trying to collect her thoughts.  
  
She could feel the icy fingers of dread begin to slip down her spine. What would happen now?  
  
She had only a moment to decide because right then, the doorbell rang. It would seem that fate had already decided for her.  
  
***********************************************  
  
It was pouring down rain, the sky split in twain like a ripe melon by bisecting cumulous clouds and heavy, driving winds.  
  
Leon thought that the turbulent rainstorm was not unlike his current state of mind. It had taken him less then ten minutes to dig deep enough around town and discover Jordan's address. So now he was standing outside the door of her condominium trying to get up the nerve to knock and in the mean time, getting soaked by something that seemed to resemble a freak monsoon.  
  
He knew she was home, having seen her black sedan parked in the space reserved for her apartment. He was just hoping that she was alone. Walking in on a possible over night date was not the way he wanted to end the morning.  
  
He reached up and hit the buzzer on the door, finally deciding that what- the-hell; you only live once.  
  
Several minutes passed, leaving him most likely resembling a drowned rat before the door opened, the chain catching and then she was peeping out at him. The surprise on her face was classic.  
  
"Leon!"  
  
"Who'd you expect?"He asked jokingly, "The boogie man?"  
  
A smile crossed her face, not reaching her eyes, "Something like that." She closed the door again and then opened it, the chain released, "Come in. You're soaked."  
  
"Yeah I know."  
  
Her apartment was done in spartan decoration. A plain green couch on offwhite carpet. A print of white wolves hunting in a dense green forest hung in a silver frame on the wall opposite the door. There was no television, no stereo equipment, nothing that resembled a normal living room.  
  
A glance into the kitchen revealed a coffee maker and white cabinets. There was a square formica table and two matching chairs.  
  
He looked into her face and she said, "How did you find me Leon?"  
  
So much for idle chit chat. She was cutting right to the quick.  
  
"I used to be a cop remember. There's little I can't find when I want to."  
  
She was dressed in a green silk robe that was almost sheer and fell teasingly to mid thigh. He wondered if she had anything under it.  
  
"Ah,"She replied, smiling again and walked from him into the kitchen, "I was just about to get in the shower when you rang. You want some coffee and a clean pair of sweats while you wait?"  
  
"No,"he answered, his stomach suddenly in knots. He wasn't usually the spontaneous sort. In fact, Leon Kennedy had never done a spontaneous thing in his life. Well short of the crisis in Racooon City. What if he was wrong about their reactions to each other? Well only one way to find out.  
  
She looked mildly surprised by his refusal but smiled anyway. "Well how about a bagel? I'm afraid I'm not much on breakfast food but I do have a weakness for a good cinnamon raisin pastry."  
  
"No thanks,"He answered, a half smile crooking his mouth,"No bagel but.."He glanced down at his wet clothes, dripping enough that a puddle had started to form on the kitchen floor around his feet, "I could use a shower myself."  
  
Her perfectly groomed eyebrows shot up, shock making the smile slip from her face, "Well I'm not sure how much hot water this place has but if you'd like to go first you can."  
  
"Nah,"He took a step toward her, pulling his sopping wet jacket off and tossing it over the back of one of the kitchen chairs, followed by his t- shirt. Bare chested he walked toward her and had to smile as she backed up, one hand held up as if to ward off a blow, "I was thinking we could just take one together."  
  
"Leon wait,"Jordan breathed, her voice little more then a panicked whisper, "There's something I have to tell you."  
  
"It can wait,"He answered mildly and grasped her upper arms before she could retreat another step, "I want you Jordan."  
  
"Leon...nows not the time for this."  
  
He tilted his head, studying her face. There was panic there, true, but her eyes were bright with something else. And he couldn't miss the way her gaze kept flicking to the smooth plains of his chest and stomach. She wasn't immune to him. He hadn't been wrong about anything.  
  
"I think it's the perfect time,"He leaned down and caught her next protest with his mouth, lips and tongue working over her before she could utter another word.  
  
She melted into him, her hands sliding up over the swell of muscle in his chest until she was pressed against his damp torso. She was taller then Claire and definately better endowed and she seemed to fit against him like the missing piece of a jig saw puzzle.  
  
A low, soft moan came from the back of her throat and he turned his body, fitting her tightly against him. The soft slithering sound of the silk against his wet skin reminded him of fingers trailed gently down sweat slickened flesh.  
  
She responded to him eagerly and awkwardly as if she wasn't sure exactely what to do. He pulled back only after he was sure that she wouldn't run again.  
  
She pressed her forehead against his chest, her cheeks stained a bright red. She was embarassed, her breathing ragged.  
  
"Jordan,"he whispered, raising her chin with two fingers, "What's wrong?"  
  
Her eyes were soft, glassy with budding desire, "I've never..." She looked down again, blushing prettily.  
  
She didn't need to finish. He knew what she was trying to say. And it both shocked and humbled him. She was twenty six, beautiful and wonderful. And a virgin.  
  
It changed things, made him less sure that this was the right thing to do. "We don't have to-"He began but she looked up at him sharply, her eyes focusing on his face.  
  
Her hand slipped down between their bodies, finding him firm and ready against the fly of his wet jeans. He made a soft sound low in his throat and moved against her hand.  
  
"How about that shower?"She whispered and pulled away from him, turning and walking out of the kitchen and down the hallway. Leaving him to follow or not.  
  
He stood there for a moment, getting a hold of himself and then followed her. The hallway was wide and lit dimly by the light from the partially open bathroom door. Lying on the floor in front of him was her now damp silk robe.  
  
He hopped unsteadily on one foot as he took of his shoes and tossed them in the kitchen, where they bounced and rolled into the far cabinets. His damp socks were thrown somewhere toward the living room.  
  
Wearing nothing but his jeans, Leon walked toward the bathroom, noting the thin trails of steam coming from the crack in the door. Taking a deep breath, he stepped into the steamy room, his eyes adjusting quickly.  
  
The loud pounding of the water in the shower was not even close to pounding of the blood in his ears. He felt like he was fourteen again and about to touch his first breast.  
  
The shower doors were diamond shaped glass, giving tantalizing glimpses of the woman just beyond them. Soft, creamy white skin and legs that looked like that started at her neck.  
  
He just stood there for a moment, trying to relearn how to breathe and she stuck her head out of the steamy doors, saying, "You planning on getting in here with those pants on?"  
  
It took him nearly a minute to make his fumbling hands lower the zipper on the jeans and peel them off his body. He tossed them on the closed toilet seat and started toward the shower.  
  
In one corner of the bathroom was a large, circular whirl pool. The bathroom was done in mauves and soft pinks. A woman's bathroom. The marble of the tub and shower a dark forest green.  
  
He managed to whack his shin on the door of the shower as he walked in. Cussing under his breath, he turned to face her.  
  
They stared at each other for the space of heartbeats, the hot water beating down around them, cutting off everything but that burning gaze.  
  
Silently, they walked toward each other, their mouths meeting and hands moving to touch and stroke any piece of skin that crossed their path.  
  
She was shy at first and tentative about touching him, often moving back to see his face after she had. She learned quickly enough that he liked everything she did, everywhere she touched.  
  
He lifted her and sat her down on the narrow alcove against the shower wall, kneeling until her calves were in front of him, her eyes watching him with a mixture of anticipation and fear.  
  
He'd never been very good with the oral part of sex. He enjoyed it and had wanted to do it more but Claire had told him that it wasn't important to her and that there was no need for him to learn. Often times, when he had insisted on going down on her, Claire had merely stared at the ceiling, not offering any advice, any movement at all to show him what she liked or didn't like. So after his first few bumbling attempts, Leon had just given it up completely.  
  
But at the first touch of his mouth on her, Jordan gasped and moved against him, saying, "Oh my that's nice." And Leon recovered a little of his confidence.  
  
She wasn't shy and when he asked her if she liked something, she was very honest about it. She liked him to be a little rough, use a lot of tongue and a bit of teeth.  
  
When she came, her body bowed on and jerked against him, knocking him off balance and making him fall back on his ass in the hot water.  
  
"Oh,"She gasped, when she had recovered, "Sorry."  
  
"Don't be sorry,"He told her, laughing, "That was exactely what I wanted you to do."  
  
"What was that?"She asked as he climbed to his feet.  
  
He looked at her, surprised, "You've never had an orgasm before?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Not even by yourself?"  
  
"I've never tried,"She admitted and smiled at him, "Can you give me another one please?"  
  
Leon laughed again and pulled her to him, his eyes growing hot again, "Baby I'll give you as many as you want."  
  
She smiled again and said, "Thank you."  
  
They soaped each other and rinsed each other and laughed, talking about anything and everything that came to mind. Then they went and filled the tub and spent another half an hour, stroking and kissing each other.  
  
"Leon,"She gasped as he used his fingers, moving in and out of her quickly and deeply, "I want you inside of me."  
  
He pulled back, watching her face, knowing she was close to that shining place again and said, "I'll hurt you."  
  
"I don't care,"She cried, arching her hips against his curled palm, "Please."  
  
He moved through that hot water, parting her legs and pressing her back against the side of the tub. She wiggled, the heat of her pressed against his stomach, her thighs rubbing against his sides.  
  
"It'll only hurt for a moment,"He promised her and shifted against her, the tip of his arousal sliding against the dampness of her body.  
  
She moaned and raked her nails down his back hard enough to break the skin. It pushed him past the point of control, the small, burning pain. Claire was always so careful, so controlled. And, he realized in that moment, so fake. He caught Jordan's mouth with his to capture her cry and drove into her, tearing past the thin membrane seperating their bodies until he was seated completely inside her, touching her womb.  
  
She pushed against him momentarily, fighting the invasion and he held still, trying to let her adjust, trying to keep from what he really wanted to do. Which was pound into her until she saw stars.  
  
Slowly, her body relaxed and then she started to wiggle against him again and he withdrew a little and moved into her again, testing her response.  
  
She gasped and gripped him, her thighs and body threatening to reduce him to a mindless machine.  
  
He took that response as an affirmative and pulled out again, nearly withdrawing completely before he shoved back into her, hard enough that their hips ground together.  
  
"Oh my,"She gasped, "Oh yes."  
  
And Leon gave up on being gentle. He grabbed her thighs and spread her body open as far as he could, thrusting in and out of her as if the world were ending and this was the last moment of pleasure that they would ever know. She moved with him, meeting each of his thrusts with one of her own, the wet, slick slaps of their bodies sending jets of water sloshing onto the tiled floor.  
  
He knew the moment she came, feeling her body bucking and spasming beneath his and started to pull out, knowing he was going to lose himself and not wanting to do it inside of her. But she grabbed him and her body clenched around him and it was too late. He pumped himself inside of her, crying out as he felt himself go.  
  
They lay curled together for a long moment after ward, the hot water around them causing a lazy, dreamy feeling to slip inside of their skin. The only sound was the soft hum of the jets of the whirl pool and the heavy, ragged sound of their breathing.  
  
He held her and stroked her hair off her forehead and looked into her eyes. She leaned against him and licked his chin absently, "Leon..I love you."  
  
Surprised, he leaned up a bit to smile down at her. "I bet you say that to all the guys."And batted his eyes like a flirt.  
  
She grinned and traced the shape of his auburn brows, the curls of dark red hair lying against his neck. "Never. Only once. Only to you."  
  
He took her hand and kissed it, "I love you too, Jordan. I think I might have loved you the first moment I saw. You've given me back myself."  
  
Her eyes misted, turning jewel like with tears. "Leon I have to tell you something."  
  
But he shook his head, climbing out the tub. He didn't want to know if she had a husband or a boyfriend. He preferred to live in the moment, to pretend it was only them.  
  
He slipped a towel around his waist and walked in her bedroom, deciding to help himself to a tour of her apartment while she dressed. He was smiling to himself over a pair of bumble bee panties lying on her dresser when he saw it.  
  
It took him a moment for it to register. The paper was just lying there beside a bottle of apple scented lotion from the Body Shoppe. The logo is what really caught his eye. That red icon that had been in his nightmares for years.  
  
He scanned the contents of the letter after that, feeling his guts turn to lead with each word. Virus, blood samples, eliminate any complications. Destroy evidence. Observe Leon Kennedy. He saw the rest of it, knew she was supposed to observe all of them but it his name that really stuck out. Observe Leon Kennedy, collect blood sample and eliminate if any complications arise.  
  
"Leon..let me explain."  
  
His eyes found her, standing in the doorway, the damp silk robe clutched to her chest like a shield.  
  
He lifted the sheet of paper, turned toward her again and held it out toward her, feeling the anger and the rage burning inside of him like a fire in a dry field. "How did the observation go Miss Blade?" He ground out from between his teeth, wishing he hadn't left his Magnum out in the car, he needed the solid steel in his hand now to help him reconnect with reality, "Did you get all the information that you needed?"  
  
"Leon it isn't like that. You have to listen to me."  
  
"Are you going to eliminate me now?" He threw the paper at her and watched her eyes as it fluttered toward the floor, "Since I know too much. Are you going to kill me?"  
  
"No,"She whispered, the tears in her eyes again, "Leon I refused them. They called to see if I had completed the assignment and I refused them. Please let me explain."  
  
"Was this just a job for you Jordan?"He asked, unwilling to accept the truth, the bold truth that was staring him in his face, written in black and white.  
  
She started to hunch in on herself and then changed her mine, her spine straightening, her eyes taking on a hard glint. "It started out as a job. I was assigned by the underground organization formerly known as Umbrella to collect samples of the soul survivors of Raccoon City. To observe them and see if they exzibited any signs of infestation or transformation from former exposure to the T or G viruses. After I obtained the samples, I was to report back to them and they would perform the necessary tests to determine wether any of you or your friends were candidates for the breeding program known as the Goliath Protocol." Jordan stepped forward and dropped the robe, all of her naked, gleaming beauty now like a slap in his face, "I didn't intend to become friends with you or your friends Leon. It was an assignment. I'm the perfect blend of human and Tyrant DNA, infused with multiple strands of the G and T virus. Engineered by the Underground to breed virtually invincible life forms."  
  
She shook her head and ran a hand down his bare chest, her eyes strangely distant now. He knew he was looking into the face of a perfect soldier. "I'd never been outside of a lab until three months ago. I was set up at the strip club where you met me and given an identity. I'm not a killing machine Leon. I was only instructed to harm you or your friends if you uncovered my mission or seemed to be suffering from some lasting effect of exposure. I was designed to be the breeding partner for the Goliath that they are constructing as we speak." The perfect soldier look slipped from her face as if she had smoothed a hand down her features and the vulnerable woman he had fallen for was there staring back at him again. "I didn't plan to become a part of your life. I won't apologize for anything I said to you. Because all of it was true. I do love you and I did abort my mission the moment I realized it." She turned away from and walked over to the dresser, picking through the drawers and dressing as she continued, "I'm sorry you had to find out like this. But I've been trying to tell you since the moment you arrived." She turned to look at him as she slipped into a dark red tank top and a pair of cut off denim shorts. "But you were more interested in fucking me then listening."  
  
Leon shook his head, unwilling to let her turn it around on him. "You're not even human."  
  
She looked at him again as she fastened a black belt at her slender waist and slid her feet into white tennis shoes, "What defines a human to you Leon? Something in your blood? I think, I feel, I breathe and sleep and cry. And I love you so much that I aborted a mission that is going to cost me my life." She shook her head and walked toward him, brushing by him and stopping to put her hand along side his face, "If you ask me that makes me more human then your precious Claire. I don't see her risking her life for anybody but herself."  
  
He stood there, breathing heavily, angry beyond words and watched her walk out of the room. Umbrella. No matter where he went, what he did, they were always with him. They had taken his job, his life. How dare she try to justify who or what she was?  
  
And yet in a way she was right. He hadn't let her speak, hadn't let her try to explain. And what if she was telling the truth now? If she had really aborted the mission, would the Undgerground come to kill her? Could he walk out of here and not know?  
  
Gathering his bearings, he followed her and found her in the living room; packing a duffel bag full of weapons. He stood there for a moment and watched her, "What are you doing?"  
  
She glanced up at him, her expression carefully blank, "Getting ready to run. If I were you, I'd do the same thing. The Underground gave me twenty four hours. Which means they'll be sending someone to see me dead. And since I didn't complete the mission, they might be coming to kill you and your friends as well." She stood up, hefting the heavy duffel bag onto her shoulder, "I'm sorry for this Leon. I hope you'll be able to believe me but if you and your friends want to have a chance, you had better call them and tell them right now."  
  
"Where are you going to go?"  
  
She smiled at him, a little sadly, "I lived in a Umbrella lab for twenty six years Leon. I may not be a fighter but I didn't come out of there completely useless."  
  
She started to walk by him and he grabbed her arm, "You're coming with me."  
  
"Give it up Leon. You're not a police man anymore." She shook his hand away and moved toward the door but he grabbed her again.  
  
"No I'm not. Umbrella took that away from me. But there not going to take you too." He kissed her before she had a chance to draw back and said forcefully, "We've got a much better chance if we stick together. I can't arrest you,"He took her arms in his hands, watched her face, "But I can ask you not to go."  
  
She softened, leaning against him,"Leon, I have to go. If we go seperate ways they won't be able to pursue us both. The Underground isn't as big as Umbrella itself was. It's reach isn't as wide. They'll come after me first because I have the knowledge because I'm a key factor in the Goliath Protocol. You, Jill, Chris and the rest might have a chance if I go one way and you go the other."  
  
Leon was already shaking his head, "I won't do it Jordan. I won't watch you sacrifice yourself for me. If you want, we can send everyone else one way and go another. But I won't leave you." Something akin to fear slipped across his arrogantly handsome face, "I lost someone once that way. I won't do it again."  
  
Jordan touched his chest, slid her fingers across the slickness there, "And if I go without you?"  
  
"I'll follow, two steps behind."  
  
He was determined, he was wonderful. She didn't deserve him. He didn't deserve what she had brought into his life.  
  
"Go back to Claire, Leon. Take her and run."  
  
"No."  
  
She dropped the duffel bag on the floor and wrapped her arms around him, hugging the feel of him against her. "Please."  
  
"I can't. I don't want Claire. I want you."  
  
She stared into his face and thought about how to get him to leave her. Thought about hurting him, yelling but she knew nothing would work. He would follow her.  
  
"We have twenty two hours, Leon. They'll be coming for me. Are you ready for that?"  
  
He looked into her eyes for a long moment and then said, "We better get moving then."  
  
************************************************ 


	3. Chapter 3

THREE:  
  
Time flows like a river and history repeats.  
  
In the bedroom, Jill could hear Chris opening and closing dresser drawers, the soft, swish of clothing tossed into back packs and nylon bags. They were going to run; again. She had thought that the running was over, that the hiding was over. But she had been fooling herself. It would never be over for them.  
  
Barry had telephoned from somewhere in the mountains, telling them that he and his family were headed north, into Canada and that he would contact them when it was safe. They had all thought it best that Barry go an opposite direction from the rest of them as he was the only one with a family to protect.  
  
Claire was waiting for them at a truck stop three miles out of town with Carlos and a jeep full of fire power. On the couch, Jordan and Leon sat waiting for them to finish their frantic packing.  
  
Their morning visit had at first been a surprise and a pleasure for Jill that had ultimately become a frenzy of fear. A quick phone call to Chris at work and Jill had begun packing, shoving anything and everything into the nearest sack or pillowcase.  
  
She glanced at Leon as she shoved weapons into her leather attache and noticed that he looked as composed as she had ever seen him. She wondered how he had handled initially discovering his girlfriend was an Umbrella biproduct.  
  
The look on Jordan's face was closer to fear then patience. There was also a silent regret on her beautiful features that told Jill that she wasn't happy about her past.  
  
She tried to be angry with Jordan but the fact that the girl had thought to warn them of the impending disaster overode the initial anger with pity. No one like to be on the opposite end of Umbrella.  
  
Chris emerged from the bedroom, his classicly handsome face set in angry lines. Chris wasn't dealing with things quite as calmly as Jill. He had come through the front door in a tempest of rage and hostility. He spit curses at Jordan and then at Leon for defending her.  
  
It was only after Jill had interceded that he had calmed down. He felt betrayed by Jordan. She couldn't blame him for it but she also knew that it wouldn't help matters to let emotions rule in a time like this.  
  
He said in a subdued voice, "Let's go."  
  
Jordan and Leon rose from the couch, bending to lift bags and boxes that were assembled sparsely around the family room of the house. With a goodbye glance around the room, Jill hefted the attache and followed her silent husband out the front door.  
  
They loaded gear and climbed into Jill's SUV.  
  
It was silent drive for the better part of a mile. They were headed South, destination unknown. But she knew it was a far fetched plan at best.  
  
Umbrella would find them. They would always find them.  
  
Finally, Chris spoke up from the driver's seat. "Tell us everything, Jordan. Start at the beginning. The more we know, the better our chances are."  
  
Jordan told them everything.  
  
When the corporate head quarters of Umbrella had fallen under the scandal of a leak in the Paris facility, the few remaining members of the Umbrella Bioweapons division had gone underground, funded by a nameless source only identified as John Doe. They had continued with the previous works of the genius invention of mutated forms of both the G and the T-viruses.  
  
In the years since the fall of Raccoon City, the research had nearly reached it's peak. They had collected chemists and biologists from across the globe to work in their main office which was well concealed off the coast of Japan.  
  
They had experimented mostly with DNA structuring and the development of the Goliath Protocol, the research to construct the perfect biorganic lifeform.  
  
Jordan herself was the perfect mate for the Goliath. The breeding partner designed to be the mother of the new race.  
  
She was basically indestructible but only skilled in the art of self defense, her primary purpose to conceive children. The Goliath itself, she told them, was unfinished at the time of her mission. Needing, several hundred more strands of DNA for its completion.  
  
But it was conceivable that in the time she had been collecting data and observing the survivors of the Raccoon City fiasco that the Goliath had been completed. In fact, in was almost a surety.  
  
The Underground had been planning on using the DNA samples of Jill and the rest as candidates for the Goliath Protocol. They were to be carefully screened and then, if they qualified, taken into the lab to be genetically altered and entered into the program. The men to become Goliath's themselves and the women, breeding partners much like Jordan.  
  
It was a terrifying thought and yet so like Umbrella. To experiment with the natural gifts of God to create destruction.  
  
When she finished speaking, silence fell over the the interior of the SUV. Anger was almost a touchable wave coming off of Chris.  
  
"Who's the head at the lab you came from?"He asked quietly, but he knew. His gut had told him the moment Jill had called him. He knew who was behind it all.  
  
"Albert Wesker,"Jordan said softly and felt Leon tense beside her.  
  
The man was a spook, a veritable Phoenix rising from the ashes. He had been a pain the ass as human. As a super freak, he very well might be the death of them.  
  
"If we run into Wesker,"Chris said softly, the sound of his voice causing Jill's blood to freeze in her veins, "He's mine. No one interferes. It's me and him. Last man standing."  
  
"Chris,"Jill protested, "None of this machismo shit. Wesker's probably so jacked up with juice that there is no taking him down. There's no way we'll leave you to face him alone."  
  
Chris turned his head, looking at her through the reflective lenses of his sunglasses. Watching her face in the bright light of morning through the windshield. "I should have taken him out back at the Spencer mansion and then on the island when I went to find Claire. It's between us now Jill. Me and him. He made it personal when he went after my family."  
  
She grabbed his hand, pressed it against her stomach and looked up at him, letting the fear and the pleading slide into her face. "I'm your family too Chris,"She let the knowledge fill her eyes of what she meant, "We're your family."  
  
In the back seat, Leon gasped grabbing Jill's arm before Chris could say a word. "Jill, you should have gone with Barry."  
  
She kept her gaze on her husband and said, "I'm not leaving Chris."  
  
Chris glanced back at the road but kept his hand on Jill's stomach. A fine trembling had started in his shoulders.  
  
Maybe it had been wrong to tell him of the baby now but she wanted him to know how serious she was about his kamikaze plans. About facing a battle he couldn't win. There was too much at stake for heroics like that.  
  
"How far along are you?"Jordan asked, her voice laced with such shame that Jill had to look at her. The other woman looked positively ill.  
  
"Two months,"Jill answered and turned back to Chris, "We're having a baby Chris. You and I. I won't watch you die."  
  
The truck stop just outside of town was awash in light from a glowing neon sign above the gas pumps. Beneath the cool blue neon glow, they could make out Carlos and Claire, leaning against the hood of his black Chevy suburban.  
  
It took them another ten minutes to load Carlos's suburban and then situate themselves inside. The atmosphere in the close condfines of the vehicle was nothing short of tense. A silence pregnant with things unsaid and fear.  
  
They stopped around noon to get something to eat and use the rest room. By then Jill was sure her bladder was going to explode.  
  
She had just emerged from the bathroom when Claire came up to her. Her sister in law was so pale that Jill was afraid she would pass out.  
  
"We're going to die,"Claire said under her breath, her short hair in curls around her face, "That woman is going to get us killed."  
  
For a long moment, Jill said nothing, choosing her words carefully. "Some of us may die,"Jill admitted softly, not wanting to sugar coat the truth, "But Claire how is that any different then two years ago? We knew when we took on Umbrella that some of us may not live to see the end of it."  
  
Claire glanced back, her gaze on Leon, soft and sad. "Do you see how he looks at her?" She whispered and Jill thought that now they were getting ot the heart of the matter.  
  
"Like he loves her,"Jill replied, voice blank.  
  
Claire's cheeks turned red, blossoms of color spreading over her face, she shrugged her shoulders and walked forward. She was heading for Jordan.  
  
Jill thought about stopping her and then decided to let her go. The confrontation was bound to happen. It was probably better to get the tension out of the way now.  
  
**************************************  
  
Claire Redfield was a sore loser. She knew, deep down knew, that she had lost Leon. But seeing him with Jordan, watching the intimacy there in each touch and gesture, set off bells in her head that couldn't be ignored.  
  
She saw the smile slip from his face as she stepped up to them.  
  
"Claire," he said, wary.  
  
But she ignored him, looking instead to Jordan. Taking in her perfectly beautiful, make up less face. The small waist and large breasts. She was everything a man could want and it made Claire both angry and jealous.  
  
She said in a low voice, "If you get Leon killed, you bitch, there will be no where on this planet that you will be able to hide from me."  
  
Leon's handsome face fell into angry lines. He opened his mouth to speak but Jordan cut him off.  
  
"I didn't take Leon from you Claire,"Jordan said in that soft, calm drawl of hers, "You took him from yourself."  
  
Claire slapped her, a blur of speed too fast for either Leon or Jordan to stop. Jordan's head snapped back, her body hitting the side of the surburban from the force of it.  
  
Leon was the first to react, grasping Claire's arms and shaking her. "Claire, have you lost your fucking mind?!"  
  
She hissed at Leon, her fine boned face breaking down into something feral and full of rage, "Let go of me!"  
  
Her released her with just enough force to cause her to stumble backward. The look on his face was part anger, part confusion, part grief.  
  
She never wanted him to look at her like that. As if she were insane and pathetic.  
  
She gave a cry of such rage that the look on his face changed to something close to fear.  
  
From the restaurant, distant screams. Chris and Carlos running toward them but they would be too late.  
  
Claire rushed Leon, and though she was slight, her adrenaline, her anger gave her such strength that he was nothing next to her initial attack.  
  
She hit him in a full tackle and he grunted, thrown off balance and fell backward, the dull thud of his head hitting the concrete like a crack of thunder. His body skimmed along the pavement, scraping, leaving traces of blood.  
  
Jordan screamed and went for Claire, her body crouched low.  
  
They faced off, each backed by rage, by love of the same man.  
  
Jordan got in one good punch, the crunch of Claire's nose was loud and clear.  
  
Claire countered with a round house kick, throwing the other woman sideways, into the surburban hard enough to dent it. She followed with a hail storm of punches, coming fast and furiously, to quick and strong for Jordan to block.  
  
She had the other woman on her knees, her arms in front of her face when Chris and Carlos got close enough to make a difference.  
  
Jordan's arms were wet with blood from Claire's nails. She was screaming, high and angry. Curses that should have pinned her ears back to her head.  
  
Chris grabbed Claire around the waist and lifted her up, swinging her in a high arc. She fought like demon set loose from hell, turning on him and kicking, biting.  
  
Carlos knelt by Jordan, pulling gently on her wrists, staring earnestly into her face from inches away. Her skin was pale, her eyes dilated but she seemed otherwise seriously unharmed.  
  
Jill reached Leon at the same time that she felt it. She had no name for what it was. But the current in the air had changed, it stank of evil, of pain, of death.  
  
She opened her mouth to say something and touched Leon and it rolled over her. She cried out, falling against the ground, her palms hitting hard enough to sting.  
  
Claire hit Chris across the face hard enough that he let her go and stumbled. She turned back to go after Jordan again and Carlos caught her, pinning her arms to her sides. She spit in his face.  
  
Jill screamed once, twice and before she could think she was scratching at her eyes, trying to claw them from her face.  
  
Chris grabbed her, yelling her name.  
  
The world spun off it's axis and Jordan knew what was happening. The Goliath Protocol. First phase: Air borne. It was typical of the Underground. Somehow they had found them and set the wheels in motion.  
  
She climbed unsteadily to her feet, looking through the melee before her from some threat that she could see. But of course there was nothing. Just a black van squealing off into the the bright horizon.  
  
They had been trying to neutralize the threat. Release the pheromones on the open breeze. A semi deserted restaurant somewhere in the desert. It made perfect, warped sense. At this rate they would all destroy each other.  
  
The Goliath Protocol had different effects on different specimens. High emotions, stress could result in violence, aggression and often times sex. Different strokes for different folks.  
  
Jill was screaming wordlessly now and Chris was crying, scared and useless, holding her, keeping her from harming herself. Pleading with her to stop Jill, please stop.  
  
Claire had freed herself from Carlos and had him on his back on the ground, pounding into his face, cursing.  
  
Leon lay some distance away, motionless, bloody. It had all gone terribly wrong so quickly.  
  
The few other patrons of the restaurant had culiminated out onto the hot pavement, there faces masks of fear and disbelief.  
  
"Go back inside,"She screamed at them, "Get back inside!"  
  
She moved toward Claire, knowing that in her madness she would kill Carlos and lifted her arm bring her elbow down on the other woman's head hard enough to knock her away.  
  
Claire sprawled on the pavement, dazed.  
  
Carlos lay on the ground, heaving, his face a bloody mask. Jordan knelt by him, "Are you okay?"  
  
He stared up at her through one good eye, the other swollen shut, slick with blood. "I think so."  
  
Claire jumped on Jordan's back before she could help him stand, throwing her sideways and to the ground. She drove her head into the pavement, once, twice. And Carlos was yanking her back again, not gently this time and throwing her hard enough away that she rolled several times on the pavement and then lay there, panting.  
  
"What the hell is going on?" He cried, holding a hand to his aching head.  
  
Jordan said, "The Goliath Protocol." And then gasped as Claire made another dash at them but Carlos was faster this time, turning, throwing his body into it. A solid right hook into her slender jaw and Claire went down like a ton of bricks, unconscious.  
  
He knelt by Jordan, his nose bleeding, his lips swollen and cut from his own teeth and said, "Madre Chinga."  
  
Jill's screaming had subsided, turning into a piteous moaning. Jordan couldn't see around Carlos to tell the damage she had done to herself.  
  
Chris was still crying, babbling incoherently. Leon had just started to stir in the distance.  
  
Carlos reached out to take Jordan's hand and the moment he touched her, she felt it spill out of him and knew which way the Goliath was going to take him.  
  
"Don't,"She cried but he grabbed her, shoved her down and jerked her thighs apart. She struggled as he started to jerk at her clothing, thrusting against her in a parody of sex. He grunted once when she smashed her fist into his chest but tore her blouse and put his mouth over her nipple through the lace of her bra.  
  
She heard the rustle of his jeans, the loud sound of his zipper and screamed once, really fighting now, but the Goliath had given him strength equal to hers if not far surpassing it. He grabbed her flailing arms in one of his large hands and shoved them against the pavement before she could hit him in the head where she was aiming.  
  
She screamed for Leon, knowing it was too late that he would never get there in time.  
  
Some distance away, Claire started to come to, sitting up and shaking her head.  
  
Carlos wripped her shorts to one side and slid himself past them, pressing against the smooth satin of her panties and Jordan started crying, "Carlos please stop..stop please stop." A litany, a plea that she knew was useless.  
  
She saw Leon running, saw him draw his Magnum and felt the first hope that he would make it. But Claire was suddenly there, running at him, throwing herself into his side hard enough that he stumbled and the Magnum slid from his hand, spinning off into the distance.  
  
Jordan screamed as Carlos tore her panties and saw Leon struggling with Claire as she hit him over and over, cursing him. He was bigger, stronger but no match for the Goliath which had ridden over the already angry Claire like a encroaching storm.  
  
She had only a moment to see Claire slamming Leon into the side of the surburban over and over and over again and Carlos shoved into her, tearing into her body like a burning sword, impaling her.  
  
He thrust into her unwilling body repeatedly, panting, spittle sliding off his chin to dribble down her face as he pumped.  
  
She screamed as the pain tore through her, felt herself bleeding, ripped somewhere inside by his assault. She had been made for breeding but not like this, not by force, not for rape.  
  
Chris was suddenly there as Carlos finished, pumping himself inside of her, a hot, scalding thing that seemed to go on forever. He yanked the other man back and Leon was there, yelling.  
  
A blur of faces, Jill her face bloody from scratches, kneeling and staring into her eyes. She was speaking but Jordan couldn't make out the words.  
  
The world had shut down, narrowing to a fine, shimmering point of numbness. She could feel the ache in her body, in her soul but she couldn't seem to grasp reality.  
  
Chris and Carlos yelling at each other, Jill crying, touching Jordan's face, Claire sobbing brokenly, a heap on the ground. It was nothing to her all back ground noise, as if she had stepped outside of herself and was looking down.  
  
And then Leon, touching her, tears in his eyes, drawing her into his arms. The world righted itself, falling into place and with it came the pain, the anguish.  
  
She screamed again and he pulled her tightly to him, rocking her. He stroked her hair, murmuring, whispering and it was his touch alone that kept her from losing it and screaming until her lungs gave out and she died right there.  
  
Carlos was huddled on the ground now around his knees, rocking back and forth and she heard him saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Over and over again like a mantra.  
  
Jill and Chris were talking quietly to Claire who still sobbed on the ground, her face in her hands.  
  
Leon drew Jordan back, looking into her face. She saw that the scar on his face had reopened and was oozing dark blood in a fine line down his pale skin.  
  
He said, "It's okay baby. It's okay now. It's over."  
  
But she felt the tears coming again and said, "Oh Leon...phase two."  
  
Confusion showed on his face a moment before his features collapsed in pain. His white shirt slowly started to stain red with blood. He lifted it, shock and disbelief edging into the pain.  
  
The bullet wound near his air pit was bleeding now and the criss cross of claw marks on his abdomen were opening slowly as they watched, the blood starting to dribble from them and fall faster in a fine, crimson wash.  
  
"What's happening?"he whispered, fear on his face as he looked at her.  
  
"Phase two,"She whispered, jerking off her torn shirt and pressing it to his stomach, "The Goliath is inside us now, it reopens all your old wounds after it attacks your cerebrum, breaking down your nervous system and splitting healed over flesh."  
  
Claire was screaming now, the groin of her jeans soaked bright red with blood. He turned his head and looked at her and the truth of her injury spilled over his features. An abortion. She had had an abortion. He knew now why they had started fighting. Knew what it was that had started to turn her from him. The guilt, the silent disdain for herself that had seperated them. She had aborted his child.  
  
Leon collapsed in on himself as his upper bicep split open like a ripe melon. A knife wound from a street punk in his first year as beat cop.  
  
Jordan whimpered, unable to spare him the pain and pressed her hand to his arm, the other holding her shirt in place on his stomach.  
  
Jill was writhing on the ground, holding her stomach, vomitting. She had had anorexia as a teen that had nearly killed her and it was coming back to her now. Her nervous system was collapsing. Jordan knew she would probably lose her child because of it.  
  
And Chris, trying to hold her, help her even as he caved in on his own pain. His chest had started to seep scarlet, two bullet holes in his left pectoral muscle from a stand off gone bad several years back when he had still been with S.T.A.R.S. His head was oozing blood in the back from the concussion that he had received on the island when Wesker and he had tangled and the other man had nearly killed him.  
  
Carlos was prone on the ground beside them, his back little more then shredded flesh. He had been nearly killed when he was a child by a rabid dog that had jumped his neighbors fence and mauled him.  
  
Every injury, every pain they had known in their lives were heaped upon them at once. Jordan knew that even if they survived phase two, that they would never stand up to the final phase.  
  
It affected your seratonin, the levels in your brain that cause you to relax. It had had two effects on the specimens tested in the labs. Either you went directly into a coma or you went mad, hallucinating and spasming until you either had a seizure or your brain simply gave out, reducing you to little more then a vegetable.  
  
She climbed to her feet, running before Leon could stop her.  
  
The black van was sitting quietly near the edge of the parking lot, the engine idle. She had to stop it, had to do something.  
  
The door slid open as she approached and Albert Wesker stepped out to greet her, his trade mark sunglasses firmly in place, his blonde hair kissed golden by the slowly setting sun.  
  
"Please,"She cried as she slid to halt in front of him, "Please you have to help them."  
  
He cocked his head at her as if she were a curious and amusing bug he was enjoying toying with before abruptly stepping on. "Why? This is the perfect test and the perfect solution."  
  
Behind her, Leon screamed her name and she turned back as he lifted one hand to her.  
  
"Go to him,"Wesker said quietly, moving close until he stood directly behind her, the voice of the devil in her ear, "He's about to enter phase three."  
  
She stared at Leon as he collapsed to the ground, writhing. If he could suffer, she could at least not turn away.  
  
"What do you want?"She whispered.  
  
"You know what I want,"He replied, his tone carefully blank.  
  
"They'll never survive it."She whispered.  
  
He shrugged, artful and perfectly done, unaffected by the writhing, screaming people less then a hundred yards away. "But they'll have a choice, won't they? On how they die."  
  
Leon's beautiful face flashed in her mind, locked forever in a silent, soundless state.  
  
"Okay,"She whispered, "Okay."  
  
She would do anything to spare him that agony. Even if it meant turning him over to be nothing more then a rat in a cage.  
  
He would be alive and he would have a chance.  
  
Wesker smiled, a hand on her arm and whispered into her ear, "Mission complete."  
  
******************************************** 


	4. Chapter 4

FOUR:  
THE GOLIATH PROTOCOL  
  
Leon awoke staring up at the ceiling, the blades of the fan turning endlessly in slow, lazy motion. He was disorientated, his head swimming with half forgotten memories and dreams. It took him a moment to get a firm grip on reality.  
Then he gasped.  
She was riding him, the smooth, tight, wet heat of her enveloping his body like a damp cocoon. Her hair tickled his hips, the silky mass falling over his groin, his thighs. Her forgot to think and became a solid, needing thing.  
He started to sit up and she let him, feeling him slip his arms around her back, bury his face in her breasts.  
She grabbed his head, held him against her, felt his body start to move in time with hers.   
He groaned and angled his knees so that she slid into the cradle of his body, sliding so deep inside of her that they both cried out. He grabbed her hair, fisting his hand in it and pulled her to him, his mouth open, hot and hungry. It was a wet carnal kiss of tongues and teeth and desire.  
He remembered vaguely making love to her, touching her gently, loving her and cherishing her and it didn't matter. Some dark part of him opened up and swallowed the rest, turning him into a burning, starving piece of flesh. He craved her.  
He grabbed her hips, arched his body, drove into her, mindless of anything but owning her, claiming her, branding her.  
She fucked him like she'd ride him into the cool sheets where he lay, her body a throbbing, slick heat. He feasted on her flesh, engorged himself with her.   
"Christ,"he groaned, when she tightened around him, the walls of her body milking him, sucking him like a hooker with a fifty dollar bill in front of her face. "Sweet god you can fuck."  
She grabbed a fistful of his hair and jerked his head back, staring into his face in the dim, muted red light of the room. "I love you, Leon. I love you." And her face was fierce, her eyes stormy and filled with a burning feral light that set off panic bells in his head.  
His mind grasped at something half remembered, a wavering image and then she was kissing him and the image slipped away on a tidal wave of pleasure.  
He reached between their bodies and found her with his fingers as his body drove into her, forcing the orgasm on her, pushing her over that pulsing, throbbing white line so that she cried out and her body clenched around him like a steel fist.   
He went with her, grabbing her hips and forcing himself into her so hard he knew it had to hurt her and not caring, hitting her pelvic bone and still pushing, touching her womb. He came there, buried deep in the nexus of her body, his cum hot and wet and like magic to her. Because it was Leon, because it was the man she loved.  
He fell back against the sterile pillowcase, breathing heavily, still pushed tight and hard inside of her and she collapsed atop him, her hair spilling over his chest and shoulders to hang off into the darkness.  
His mind worked to collect itself, to make sense of the images swirling through his mind like transulucent phantoms on a spectoral plane.  
Jordan whispered, "Leon...forgive me."  
And it came back to him in a fire storm of memory. The parking lot, the Goliath Protocol. He had been dying, his body bursting from the inside out, someone with a needle and then cool darkness.  
He said, "What happened?" But wasn't sure he really wanted to know.  
Their sweaty bodies slid over each other as she rolled off him, curling into his side. She told him about the phases, the neurostimulus of the air borne Goliath strain. The collapse of your systems, the paranoia and increased levels of hormone imbalance that caused the fighting, the sexual aggression. The thinning of the blood stream and nervous system that caused the reopening of the old wounds. The release of spinal fluid and seratonin that caused that seizures, the hallucinating and comatose state that came with the final phase.  
They held each other for a long moment as she told him of Wesker, of the her agreement to let him take them to the lab, of the techs injecting them with the anti-strain, cleverly named David.   
How they had taken them all to seperate rooms and what she had over heard would be done with them.  
He listened, not surprised because she had already told him all about what the lab was like. About the testing ground, little more then a large sterile room that was a maze of twists and turns and walls. How they would release goats and dogs and other test animals in the maze and then let the different creatures bred in the lab free to pursue them.  
She knew what Wesker had planned for them. The ones that didn't qualify for the Goliath Protocol. They would become the first of the human test subjects. Given weapons and set loose to run and try to fight their way free of the maze. A perfect catalyst for real combat. To see how the Goliath fared against armed soldiers in a potentially violent enviroment.  
He was scared but not any worse then he had been trudging through damp, stinky sewers in Raccoon City piled high with rotting bodies and pursued by screaming, slathering monsters into the darkness.  
Somewhere along the way in dealing with Umbrella, Leon Kennedy had stopped being afraid of death.  
His hand slid down her body, palming her, still damp from their lovemaking and he whispered, "Carlos raped you."  
Leon wondered if this would be their last hours together. He didn't want to die with fear and self hate between them. He wanted to hold her and love her and know she loved him.  
She caught his hand, held him against her. "He couldn't control himself. I don't want you to be angry with him Leon. It was the Goliath in his blood. Instead of aggression for Carlos, it came out as sex. It could have been anyone under him, he didn't mean to hurt me."  
Leon said nothing, merely held her, his gaze distant.  
"Leon,"She caught his face and stared into his eyes until he focused on her, "He might be one of your allies in the maze. Don't let this stop you from working with him."  
There was a tightness in his eyes, an anger that Carlos had hurt her, but a resolution to the cause as well. "What will they do with you Jordan?"  
He felt her body tense, heard the fear in her voice. "I'm the mate for the Goliath. You know what they will do with me."  
For a long moment, they said nothing, merely held each other, listening to the rhythm of their breathing.   
Then she was slipping away from him, kissing him as she went. He reached for her but she said, "I have to get back. I don't want them coming here and finding us. They would just kill you right out."  
He said nothing, just watched her fingers slide through his hand. Looked at her naked and beautiful and fearful in the soft light from the doorway.  
"Jordan...I love you."  
"Leon...goodbye."  
The door closed and from somewhere in the distance, someone screamed.  
***********************************************  
Albert Wesker looked down from the glass enclosure high above the room aptly titled The Maze and had to smile. The Maze was a work of genius.   
Three football field lengths of tight corners, endless puzzles and a final wide open space where the creatures would be released to end the lives of the S.T.A.R.S members that had been plaguing him since the Spencer Mansion so many years ago.  
The techs had been informed to gather the few who had been rejected from the Goliath Protocol and give them the necessary equipment to face off with the Goliath himself and his many smaller counterparts. It would been a puny effort at best since the Goliath was nearly a thousand pounds of intelligence and perfectly bred instinct but it would be amusing and it would serve the research effort well.  
The girl, Jill, wouldn't be joining them as she had been proved fruitful and good for the cause. The child she carried was already being injected and monitored with the Goliath strain. If the injections took, then she would birth the first of the new breed of human evolution.  
Most likely, she would die from the birthing, as the child would grow to more then ten times the size of a human fetus, tearing her womb and body as it struggled it's way into the world. But such was the way of things. It was a small price to pay for the gift she would be giving them.  
There had been some argument over his decision to put Redfield into the Maze. Since it was apparent that he was a successful breeder, they had wanted to retain him in the lab and use him in the Protocol but Wesker had been adamant about his participation. Redfield would be let loose in the Maze. He deserved the hell the Goliath would put him through. The arrogant little shit had spent too long trying to ruin Wesker.  
His sister Claire was a complete bust, her miscarriage months earlier making her all but useless to them as a breeder and thus set to join her brother in his final bout with death. The bitch dying would be another way to pay Redfield back for all the corporate hoops Wesker had had to jump through lately to save Umbrella's ass.  
The half breed Carlos was tainted blood. They didn't want to breed any mixed blooded children from him. The first children born from the Goliath would be pure blooded, one combined race. The Indian, Anglo, Mexican heritage of Oliveira made it impossible to determine that his offspring would be of one race. So into the Maze for him as well.  
Kennedy had been the hardest to convince the techs to allow Wesker to put in the Maze. He was pure middle american caucasion, his seed was tested and proved strong. But it was the way Jordan interacted with him that made Wesker determined to dispose of him quickly and finally.  
Jordan belonged to the Goliath, he couldn't let her strong feelings for the ex-cop from Raccoon interfere with her purpose. He was too big of a risk to keep around.  
So in less then ten minutes, the four pains in his ass would be set into the Maze and the cages opened.   
He figured they'd last an hour, seventy five minutes at the outside. They didn't have the strength, the cunning or the speed to compete with the breeding of the Goliath creatures.  
He lifted his hand and touched the intercom atop the glass wall looking down into the Maze. "Get them into the cage."  
"Yes sir."  
The fun was about to begin.  
*********************************************  
Claire watched silently as Chris tried to reason with the white coats that surrounded them. She knew that speaking to the peons of Albert Wesker was useless. They were eerily efficient and silent about their tasks.  
They had brought her, her brother, Carlos and Leon and put them into a room that was little more then four white walls and a large steel door. The techs strapped kevlar vests onto each of them and outfitted them with hand guns, several sharpnel grenades and varying machine guns.  
They gave her the lightest of the guns, an M16, and strapped a fanny pack at her waist with extra ammo and moved on to do the same to Carlos who stood beside her.  
He hadn't bothered to glance at her once since they had entered the room, his handsome face closed down and blank. She had been a little pissed at first but now realized that it was his way of preparing for whatever lay ahead of them.  
"Where is Jill?"Chris asked for the hundreth time, "What have you fucks done with my wife?"  
They ignored him and strapped a fifty calibur hi-powered rifle to his back, securing the strap with a loud jerk of nylon.   
At first, Chris had tried manhandling a few of them to get answers but they had quickly contained that out burst with a low voltage tazor that had caused Chris to collapse in on himself in pain.  
Leon was outfitted with two nickel plated .45's each in a holster strapped around his upper thighs and given an Uzi with a laser scope in a holster that swung low under his left arm pit. They tucked a semi automatic Beretta into a shoulder holster and several extra magazines into the belt around his waist.  
They outfitted each of them then with wrist and ankle sheaths with blades nearly as long as he forearm, hilts light and made for throwing.  
Looking at all the fire power between the four of them, Claire had a bad feeling she knew what they were about to face. The Goliath.  
When the techs finished their silent vigil, they moved away from them and out through the double doors through which they had come, leaving the four of them to their own brooding silence.  
Carlos was the first to speak, "Do you think if we rushed them, with all this fire power, we might be able to get out of here?"  
Before anyone could answer, a voice came to them. "You could try of course, my mexican friend, but I can assure you that you would get no farther then this door."  
Through the double doors, came Albert Wesker, in all of his horrid glory. He was still as handsome, still as WASP in his breeding as Claire remembered. Blonde haired, blue eyed, the poster child for the perfect race. But it was who walked in beside him that really made them all gasp.  
"Rebecca!"Chris cried, startled.  
Rebecca Chambers walked quietly toward them, a sawed off shot gun trained on the silent woman before her. Jordan's face was a mask of fear and anguish as she stopped in front of them, he eyes only for Leon.  
Rebecca was every bit the girl she had been when she had left them after the Spencer fiasco all those years ago. Smiling, fresh faced and looking about as harmful as a new born puppy.   
She smiled that charming smile at Chris and said, "Chris, how good to see you."  
"Becca, what are you doing here?"  
She lifted the shot gun to emphasize her position and replied, "You didn't actually think that I couldn't be bought did you? Umbrella offered me more money then I ever dreamed of to help perfect the Goliath strain. It was every biochemists dream."  
Chris's face shut down, the anger replacing the shock and making him seem almost dangerous even though he knew there was nothing he could do about it. Not if he wanted to see Jill again.   
Wesker smiled at them, his eyes traveling over the assmebled group like a proud parent. "I would imagine you all have grasped your situation by now. But just in case you're not as smart as you appear to be, let me enlighten you. I'm about to let you become the first humans to be tested against the Goliath Protocol. You've been outfitted with different weaponary to see how our creations hold up under fire power." He stepped up close enough that he and Chris were barely an inch apart,"You won't survive of course but you do understand the need for such tests I'm sure. And of course your participation in this study will be documented and kept on file for further experimentation."  
Chris and Wesker stared at each other for a long moment, the tension straining between them like a burning, touchable thing. Finally, Chris spat at him, "Where is my wife, you spineless bastard?"  
"Ah yes,"Wesker returned, unruffled by Chris' anger, "Miss Valentine is progressing quiet nicely in laboratory three. She should be delivering in less then,"he glanced at his watch and said, "an hour or so."  
Chris grabbed him before anyone saw it coming, his fist hitting the other man squarely in his perfect nose. Claire cried out and Leon grabbed Chris back as Wesker stumbled and put a hand to his face.  
Wesker laughed at them from a face now liberally splattered with blood. "Ah Redfield, still the hot head I remember. But it won't do you any good to assault me. Your wife isn't long for this world and neither are you I'm afraid."  
Rebecca lowered her shot gun and hurried forward to tend to Wesker's broken nose.  
Jordan took the opportunity to run to Leon, grabbing him and pushing him behind her. "I'm going with them." She announced, her body shielding Leon from Wesker and Rebecca.  
Wesker merely glanced at her, smiling, "If you don't step away from your lover, my dear, I will simply have him shot in the leg before I send him into the Maze. The creatures come much faster at the smell of fresh blood."  
Jordan turned and put her arms around Leon, holding him as tight as she dared. "I can't let him do that to you. Leon, I'm so sorry."  
Leon grabbed her and held her for a moment, "Stop saying that. I'll be alright. We'll get out of here."  
They locked eyes, staring at each other as if the other were drowning.  
"Isn't his a lovely scene,"Wesker said in a sing song voice, "Young love. So beautiful. So pathetic. Get back Jordan, now."  
Jordan obeyed, trailing her hand along his face as she withdrew.   
Claire turned away, her hands in fists. The woman would be the death of all of them. Leon was a fool.  
Rebecca moved back, the shotgun raised again and smiled. "The creatures are ready, Captain Wesker."  
Wesker looked at the four of them and smiled as the steel doors behind them slid open, "Have fun kiddies. Try not to run too much, fear excites them. And don't die too quickly, I'd hate to have such good times come to and end."  
"Wesker, you son of a bitch," Chris snarled, "I'll see you dead."  
Somewhere in the distance, a loud, shrill scream split the air, the cry of the hungry. The call of the damned.  
Wesker's smile blossomed into a grin as Rebecca waved them through the open doors, "Oh no, my dear dear friend, I'll see you dead."  
Thye walked through the doors with the sound of malicious laughter following them like a trail of cheap perfume.  
***************************************  
The Maze reminded Carlos of something a lab rat must endure to find a piece of cheese. In fact, that was probably the most accurate analysis you could make when faced with the winding corridors and puzzles that the four of them stumbled through for nearly twenty minutes.  
He felt like they should be hitting a feeder bar and making lights flash when they came upon the twists and turns that seemed to be leading them no where fast.  
He was actually kind of hoping one of the bleating, screaming monsters they kept hearing would find them, at least then he'd have something to shoot at.   
Leon and Chris were several yards ahead of Claire and him, trying different doors and coming up with nothing. They were better at the mind stuff then he was. He was a shooter, a hired gun, trained to point and pull a trigger. Puzzles were not his forte.  
Claire seemed content to wander along beside him, occasionally cracking bad jokes just to ease the tension. He was in love with her, had been in love with her for as long as he could remember but he knew it didn't matter now, probably never had.  
The way she kept looking at Leon, he knew that if they made it out of here alive, he had lost her anyway. He needed something to focus on besides their current state and analyzing his relationship with her seemed to keep his mind off the endless danger that stalked them.  
She had always been attracted to him but it had started as one of those harmless flirtations that she had no intention of following through with. When the problems with Leon started, Carlos had been more then happy to lend a comforting shoulder and ear. It had been the miscarriage that had thrown her weeping into his arms and his bed.  
He was sorry for it now, sorry that he had taken advantage of her like that, sorry that had loved her too much to say no. He knew there was nothing worse then a guy feeding off someone elses girl. And he liked Leon, respected him, hadn't meant to ruin things with them.   
But it was too late for that now. Too late to apologize and make things right. The best he could do is watch the other man's back and help keep them all alive.  
Up ahead, they reached a T shaped intersection and Leon and Chris paused, waiting for them to catch up.  
"Left or right?,"Chris asked, his face pale, his eyes angry and haunted. Carlos knew he was thinking of Jill and that there was nothing they could do to help ease his pain.  
Claire sighed beside him and said, "We went left last time, so I say right."  
Leon nodded, glancing up at the glass enclosure above them, searching for Jordan. "Right it is."  
"We could split up,"Carlos suggested, feeling he should try to contribute, "Try both ways."  
Chris was already shaking his head, "Better chance of survival if we stick together. Don't know what were up against here or how much shit we might get into."  
Carlos nodded and they all went right, lapsing back into silence, trudging along like..well..like rats.  
They wandered for another five minutes before they came upon a wide open space and near the back of it, almost a foot ball field of space, a set of glass doors.  
Claire breathed, "Oh yes."  
Carlos had to agree.  
Above them, a loud, shrill cry, a wet gurgle of sound. Carlos spun, gun raised and had a moment of complete blankness at what was crouched on the top of the wall.  
It was an ugly cross between an ape and a horse, it's hairy, greasy flesh stretched tight over a hooved body with fists as big as his head. There seemed to be large suction cups attached to the base of it's four cloven feet, keeping it stuck securely to the slick glass of the wall.  
It's face was comprised of features resembling a large ape, the bulbous nose, the nearly human jaw structure, the very human black eyes. But the thing had multiple mouths on it's face, three or four open, razor filled traps filled with hundreds of dripping fangs, sharp enough to pierce through flesh and bone in one bite.  
Claire's gun fired first, taking the creature in it's massive, hairy chest, a spout of dark green blood spraying from the wound as the monster screamed and lunged toward them.  
Carlos pulled the trigger as it came, moving with in human speed. The automatic peppering the body with a loud, ratatatat of sound and bullets.  
The creature fell into a crouch less then five feet from them, opening it's mouths, screaming high and angry. It oozed green blood like a busted water fountain, wounded but not seriously and Carlos' aimed at it's face and pulled the trigger as it sprang at them, large, meaty hands reaching.  
It's face blew away in a spraw of blood and bone, the screaming cut short like a switch had been thrown, the body flopping bonelessly less then a foot from them. It jerked twice and died, it's body curling in on itself and lying still.  
They stared at it in unison, their faces mirrors of horror and fear. And then, before they were ready, another scream, then another. Until there was a chorus of angry, souless cries littering the air around them like voices raised in a terrible song of death.  
They came from the shadows, from the tops of the walls, from the ceiling above them, falling like dark, hungry rain. Hitting the ground and coming for them, a tidal wave of hairy bodies with ugly faces and dripping mouths. There seemed to be hundreds of them, coming from every corner of the room, blocking their only escape.  
Chris cried, "Fall back! Fall back!"  
And they all turned and ran, Leon covering their backs. The loud cracks of his Uzi their only comfort.  
****************************************  
Jill was fading, the process of labor draining her of her strength and her blood. She kept going in and out of consciousness, sometimes taking long moments before she remembered who and where she was.  
Above her, faces floating and voices speaking but she didn't recognize any of them or bothered to focus long enough to make out their words.  
Chris. Where was Chris?  
Another contraction and Jill screamed as her stomach twisted, threatening to come apart completely.   
She was secured to the steel slab she was lying on, her wrists tightly bound along her sides, her ankles held by two people, spread eagle as another crouched between her thighs to await the child coming out of her.  
Hands were kneading her stomach, helping the pushing, and she caught the first words that made sense to her.   
"Breech position."  
That wasn't good. The baby was upside down. She needed a C-section.  
"Chris!"She screamed, "Chris!"  
But he was no where to be found.   
She had trouble collecting her thoughts. Where was she? What was happening?  
Someone above her with a long, shiny blade. Jill began to panic. Weren't they supposed to use some sort of drug for this? Do a spinal? Prep the area? What kind of hospital was this?  
They lowered the blade toward her abdomen and Jill began to fight, crying out, "No no no no no! Chris! My baby no!"  
Blood, red hot, searing pain. Her vision went blurry, her body bowing as the knife sank in, slashed through her skin.  
She flopped back on the steel slab, the world turning sideways, her body going limp.   
There was only colors now and bright light. It wasn't even hot anymore.  
The most wonderful sound in the world, the cry of a baby. Jill smiled, her bleary eyes looking around. But she saw only one small foot before the baby was taken away by a white coat, a blurred face.  
"No,"She cried on her last bit of strength,"My baby!"  
"Bleeding profusely, she's starting to hemorahge."  
"Heart rate dropping."  
"Vital signs failing."  
Jill saw Chris smiling at her, holding their baby, blessed with his dark hair and her chin. She held out her arms and he laid the infant there, kissing her forehead, telling her he loved her.  
She hugged them to her and smiled, happy and content in their love.  
They lay curled together on their bed, watching the baby curl his chubby fists around their fingers and smile. They held hands and kissed each other, amazed at the babies beauty.  
"I love you Jill."  
"I love you too." She closed her eyes, content to sleep now, surrounded by love.  
"Flat line."  
They pulled a white sheet over body and it soaked up the blood, turning a bright, shiny scarlet.   
The lights went out and darkness filled the silent room.  
*************************************  
Chris knew they were getting low on ammo. They had retreated back into the maze of corridors to try and bring the monsters to them, to pick them off as they came around the corner before they could attack. But it was an endless, drawn out battle. The monsters were hard to kill and too numerous to count.  
They just kept coming.  
Claire was still firing with the M16 and Leon was on his last clip for the Uzi, Carlos had thrown aside his machine gun long ago and was using the .357 they had given him but soon it would come down to the grenades and the knives. Chris knew if that happened it would be a losing battle.  
He slammed home the last magazine he had for his own 10 millimeter Glock and kept firing because he had no other choice.  
"We need a new plan!"He cried, watching Leon blow away the face on one of the creatures, a freak of thing that resembled a lion with a snakes coming out of it.   
"We're losing ground,"Leon called, taking out on of the things that got within a inch of slashing open Claire's stomach, "We have to get somewhere and regroup."  
Chris racked his mind for somewhere close and relatively closed off as Carlos threw down the .357 and pulled one of the knives, falling back to give Leon and Claire and Chris the time to close in and cover him.  
Above them, Wesker's voice came over the intercom system, piercingly loud and jovial, "Congratulations Redfield. Your wife just gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. Regrettfully she didn't live long enough to see the infant but you know how complicated child birth can be these days."  
Chris's mind went blank and he emitted a loud cry that sounded like the scream of a dying animal, he threw down his empty Glock and drew a knife in each hand, charging the waiting beasts. Uncaring now wether he lived or died.  
Leon and Claire yelled for him to stop but he threw himself into one of the monsters, riding it to the ground, stabbing and slashing the moment he touched it.  
The monster, something that reminded him of the offspring of a frog and a wolf, screamed and flailed wildly, slicing open his arm and chest but Chris stabbed at it, screaming over and over, wild.  
The monsters closed in around him as he gutted their comrade, spilling it's steaming intestines on the ground in a putrid mass. He stood and faced them over their fallen companion, the knives held in his blood soaked hands like twin blades of hell.  
"Chris!"Claire cried, "Please!"  
Chris stood ready, his body a throbbing point of tension and called, "Leon, you get my sister out of here alive. Do you understand me?"  
"Chris!"Claire screamed, "NO!"  
Carlos grabbed the M16 from Claire and moved up beside Leon, helping the other man pick off the monsters. Desperately trying to keep them from Chris.  
"Promise me Kennedy,"Chris demanded, the monster less then ten feet from him now, "Promise me."  
Leon replied, "Get back here Redfield and we can do it together."  
"No time. No dice,"Chris answered, "Swear it, Kennedy. Swear you'll get her out alive."  
Leon stood in silence, shooting as fast as he could pull the trigger, drawing the .45's when the Uzi clicked empty. "I swear it." He called finally and watched in horror as Chris rushed the monsters, screaming over his shoulder.  
"I love you, Claire. Live for me, live for Jill."  
"CHRIS!"Claire screamed, tears on her face, "Damn you, no!"  
"Wesker,"Chris called, "I'll see you in hell."  
Claire kept screaming for him even after he disappeared into the sea of writhing, waiting, hungry bodies. Her tearful cries mixing with the agonized wails of the damned.  
********************************************  
From the enclosure above the Maze, Jordan watched Chris run into the mass of monsters, banging her fists on the glass, screaming wordlessly.  
She saw him slashing, stabbing, kicking when they came close to him. And saw them tear into him, their mouths ripping at his flesh. He never flinched, never wavered, merely fought like a man with no hope, only rage.  
She turned away, tears on her face and saw the smiling countenance of Wesker, enjoying her agony, enjoying Chris's last stand.  
She couldn't stand to see him torn apart, to watch such a brave and valiant man fall. She had to do something, had to help them.  
"Let me go,"She hissed at him, coming toward him, unconcerned for the shiny gun pointed so carefully at her. "I will kill you."  
He laughed, a loud bark of joy. "You will do nothing except watch the people you care about torn to pieces." He stepped around her as if she were a fly nagging at him and looked down at the waging battle, "Redfield is a fool and coward. He deserves to die this way."  
"A coward,"She spat, "You are a coward. If you had half the balls Chris Redfield has it'd be you in there fighting those monsters."  
He smiled at her over his shoulders and shrugged. "They don't pay me the big bucks to have balls darling. It is a shame about Kennedy though. The man is quite a specimen and fairly smart it seems. I'm sure you'll enjoy the surprise I have for him the most."  
Jordan glared at him, "What do you mean?"  
"Didn't you know?"He laughed, "We released the Goliath ten minutes ago. It's only a matter of time now."  
Jordan screamed once and rushed him before Wesker could blink, her inhuman speed making it impossible for him to lift his arms and fight back. She slammed him into the glass of the room over and over again until his skull caved in and his blood splattered the wall in streaks of bright crimson. She kept slamming his body, hearing his bones crack, feeling the glass shutter under the impact.   
She was screaming into his face even after the life seeped out of his eyes and he hung in her arms little more then a bag of flesh and bones. She beat him against the wall like she was swinging a bat, slinging him body carelessly. The glass finally gave, shattering under the assault into tiny, jagged fragments, raining down into the Maze in ruby shards.  
She shoved him through the shattered glass, his body cut to ribbons by the jaws of the wall and listened until she heard the crunch of his fallen form on the tiles below.  
The door behind her slid open and Rebecca rushed in, too late to save her Captain but just in time to join him.  
Jordan snatched the shot gun from her hands and turned it on her, causing the other woman to recoil in fear.  
"I'm not going to waste a bullet on you,"Jordan growled and grabbed the other woman just as the techs started spilling into the room behind her.  
Turning, she leapt through the broken glass, clutching Rebecca around the waist like a rag doll, landing on the glittering glass strewn and running toward the gun shots. Toward Chris and Claire and Carlos.  
Running toward Leon. Praying to god, she wasn't too late.  
**************************************************  
Claire was holding Chris's head in her lap, stroking his brow which was covered in blood, crying.  
Carlos and Leon had managed to eliminate the last of the monsters just as Chris had fallen, taking a large, meaty fist to the side of the head. His clothes were ripped to shreds, his flesh not faring much better but he was breathing and that in itself, was a gift from god.  
Leon and Carlos were comparing ammo. Between them they had a magazine for Claire's Beretta, a clip for the M16, three rounds still in one of Leon's .45's and a shrapnel grenade. It wasn't too bad, if you added the blades but it was a hell of a lot less then they'd started out with and who knew what they were up against next.  
From the corner, they heard the sound of running foot steps and backed up, guns raised as Claire sat holding her brother.  
Jordan came around the corner, dragging Rebecca by her hair and threw the other woman down in front of them sprawled on her hands and knees.  
Shocked, they simply stared at her for a moment.  
Leon lowered the .45 and opened his arms as she ran to him. They embraced, stroking each other's faces and hair.   
"Jordan,"He pulled her back from him, took in her blood splattered face and clothes, "What happened?"  
"Wesker,"She said softly, "I killed him. I spilled his brains and his blood all over the place."  
Claire looked up sharply and then back at Chris, whispering to her brother. "He's dead Chris. He's dead. It's over."  
"No,"Jordan said, turning toward her, "He's released the Goliath. It's coming this way."  
Carlos said, "We can take it."  
"No, we can't."Jordan replied, quite calmly, "But if we can get to those doors. We might be able to out run it. And,"She motioned to Rebecca, "We'll be leaving her behind as bait."  
Rebecca looked up sharply, fear plain in her face, "No please don't. It will kill me."  
Claire looked at the other woman coldly, "That's the best news I've heard all day."  
"Okay,"Leon said, "Let's go. But Rebecca comes with us."  
Rebecca looked at him greatfully.  
He finished by saying, "We need somebody to prove that this place exists. So we can put a stop to it."  
Rebecca smirked at them, "It won't matter Leon. Haven't you figured out Umbrella by now? The minute Wesker's body hit the floor, I hit the self destruct button on this place. In ten minutes, there won't be enough left of this place to scoop up with a spoon."  
Carlos kicked her sharply and she grunted, collapsing on the floor, giving him a dirty look. "You fucking half breed."  
He smiled at her, charming, "You got two choices, chocha, you can show us the emergency evacuation passage out of here, because you and I both know there is one. Or we can leave you here for the Goliath. It's up to you."  
Leon nodded, stepping up to help her stand, "At least if you come with us, you might stay alive."  
She looked between them, considering and then the alarm sounded in the distance, a high, shrill sound and the lights went out, the room filling with flashing red light.  
A mechanical voice over head said, "Ten minutes in count down. Ten minutes until detonation."  
On the floor, Chris started to come to, groaning. Claire and Carlos helped him to his feet, his body sagging between them.  
Chris gave a half hearted laugh, "Self destruct sequence. Isn't this a familiar scenario."  
They stood for a moment longer and Claire said desperately, "We have to go now."  
Rebecca said finally, angrily, "This way. Let's go."  
She ran toward the doors and they followed her, pulling Chris between them.   
Their slow trek down the flashing red hallway, was made in silent fear. Their steps the only sound besides the loud scream of the alarm over head.  
She lead them through three different hallways, running full tilt by the time they came through another doorway and started down a winding flight of stairs.  
"It's a submarine,"She called, "Only Wesker and I knew about it. The rest of the staff wasn't briefed on the escape plan. They weren't important enough to inform."  
How like Umbrella, Leon thought, to leave out the little people. To let them die in the explosion.   
Chris was nearly dead weight by the time they reached the bottom of the stairs, his body hanging uselessly between Carlos and Claire, and Leon took Claire's place at his side, seeing her struggling under his weight, slowing to a nearly crawl.  
Jordan kept the shot gun on Rebecca's back, following the other woman like an angry shadow, watching for any signs of betrayal.   
The stairway spilled them out into a box of a room with only a hatch on the other side, leading into what they knew must be the submarine.  
Rebecca ran to the controls and started punching in numbers as the rest stood around her, patient, useless, afraid.  
A loud sound said, "Pass code confirmed." And a green light flashed above the hatched door, the doors sliding open into a room with a ladder leading down.  
Claire went first, moving down the ladder with alarming speed and then Carlos. When he reached the bottom, Leon handed Chris down carefully, waiting until he heard Carlos called up to him before motioning to Jordan.  
Jordan froze the minute her foot touched the top of the ladder and said, "Oh my god,"She turned to Leon and grabbed his shirt, "Wait for me!"She cried and was gone, back up the stairs in a blur of color.  
"Jordan!"He screamed and started to go after her but then stopped and turned to Rebecca, training the .45 on her.   
"We have to go now!" Rebecca screamed and started for the ladder.  
"No,"Leon told her quite calmly, "We wait for Jordan."  
"But we have to..."Rebecca's voice trailed off, her words cut short as her eyes widened in fear and horror, "It's too late,"She whispered, "We're all dead."  
Leon turned, wondering what held her attention behind him and came face to face with the Goliath.  
It was massive, nearly fifteen feet in height and standing at the base of the stairs. It had the torso of a man but it's lower half was four hooves much like the creatures that had first attacked them in the Maze. In the flashing red light it was impossible to tell what color it was but he knew it was something light and scaley like the skin of a snake. Wings spanned out from it's back nearly thirty feet in diameter, huge and nearly transparent. It's human shaped head was graced with six thick, curling horns, the points so sharp he knew that they would go in one side of a human and out the other. It had eyes that burned, glowing red in the flashing lights and they were fixed on him in a mindless, pulsing rage. It's arms as human looking as it's torso, were as big around as Leon's waist and built bulging with muscle.  
It came at him like a flash of monsterous lightening and Leon opened fire, the .45 bucking in his hand, the three rounds smacking it solidly in the chest. Blood blossomed on the thing, spilling down the cobblestoned abs in a red wash. It never blinked, never flinched just kept coming and Leon reached around for the M16 but it would be too late.  
It smashed into him, throwing him up and over it's shoulder in a throw that sent him flying through the air like a toy. He hit the far wall hard enough that his teeth clapped together and bit through his lip. Blood welled up inside his mouth. He started to stand and spun around at a loud scream from Rebecca.  
The Goliath had her lifted in it's arms, raising her toward it's mouth which slid open, wide, wider until it was nearly three feet wide. Teeth as long as his forearm glinted in the lights, dripping with streams of saliva.  
Rebecca flailed wildly, kicking out and hitting it but the thing never stopped bringing her toward it's mouth.   
Leon stumbled and pulled the M16, opening fire before he had it pointed completely, the hollow point, semi jacketed rounds tore into that snake like flesh and came out the other side.  
It battered into the Goliath's back in a hail of bullets but it was as if he were wasting his time because it just kept raising her and then it was too late and it tore into her stomach.  
Leon screamed, "No!"  
Rebecca's scream turned into a wet gurgle as it ripped apart her stomach, blood pouring in a water fall down it's naked chest. Leon heard the crack of ribs, the wet slap of flesh smacking into naked bone and kept firing although he knew now that it was useless.  
Rebecca went slack in it's arms, hanging like a broken doll, her eyes empty and glassy in death. It threw her aside, the crack of her body against the stairs loud and ominous.  
Leon threw the empty M16 aside and drew one of the knives, his face pale and set. He was going to die. He screamed as loud as he could, "Carlos start the submarine! Get out of here now!" And hoped they heard him.  
A clatter on the stairs and Jordan was there, holding a bundle of something tight against her chest. He saw one tiny fist wave in the air and turned his face back to the approaching monster.  
He said, "Jordan, get the baby on the submarine. Go now while I distract it!"  
But she came toward him and shoved the baby into his arms gently, he clasped it to him reflexively and then she turned and walked toward the Goliath saying softly, "He's a little out of it. I injected him with the David strain."   
The baby clasped his shirt and Leon looked down at it, surprised to see it was human and happy to be held by him. He had thought, when Wesker had said Jill had given birth, that they had mutated it, made it somehow deformed but it looked small and pink and perfect there in it's blanket. He knew why, the anti strain.   
He yelled, "Jordan! What are you doing?"  
She smiled at him, a little sadly, "I'm the mate for the Goliath Leon. It won't hurt me and it will mate with me until conception occurs. You will be long gone by then and this place will be a speck of black in the sky."  
"Jordan, I won't leave you."  
"Save that baby, Leon Kennedy. Get him to his daddy. I'll be right behind you." It was a lie. He knew it, she knew it. But he couldn't just stand there and let the baby in his arms die. And she knew that too.  
He ran past her and clutched the baby to his chest as he descended the ladder. When he reached the bottom, he laid the baby on sack of flour not far from the ladder, securing it with the blanket, snug and warm. It smiled at him sweetly and he turned, climbing back up the ladder.  
The submarine had been humming, Carlos obviously having figured out how to start it. He figured they had moments to get aboard or it would leave without them.  
As he reached the top of the hatch, a voice over head told them they had three minutes left until detonation.  
He climbed up and saw little more then Jordan's feet sticking out beneath the body of the Goliath. He screamed for her and ran at it, jumping on it's back.  
It reared back, fangs straining and he saw that it hadn't been eating her. It had been doing what she said it would do, preparing to mate with her.   
She was unconscious on the floor, the left side of her face already swollen from bruising, the dress she had been wearing torn up to her neck down the middle like a crude robe. Her legs were sprawled so wide open he was amazed the monster hadn't broken her pelvic bone in his attempt to force himself on her.  
It threw Leon off it easily and he rolled as his body hit the floor, taking most of the impact on his left shoulder and hip. It stung, would probably hurt like a bitch later, but wasn't a killing blow.   
The monster leapt on him, pinning his body to the floor, snarling in his face like a rabid dog. He watched in horror as the mouth peeled back, the jaw opening, the flesh straining until he was staring into three feet of black space and glittering butcher knife teeth. It started down toward his face and there was a loud whistle from behind him.  
The monster whipped it's head to the side, following the sound. A male voice said, "Dinner time big boy."  
Leon rolled away the moment it's head turned, his foot coming up to kick it solidly where he hoped it's testicles were. He figured it had to have balls to be able to mate with someone. The monster reared back, listing to one side in pain and then made a loud choking sound as if it were gagging on something.  
Leon rolled, a somersault that would have made a gymnast proud, and came to his feet already moving toward Jordan.  
He saw Carlos at the hatch, shouting down to Claire as he lowered Jordan's limp body down the ladder and then turned to Leon. "Hurry." He motioned to the ladder and Leon ran toward him, surprised that they had waited for them, surprised that Carlos had come back.  
Leon jumped over the writhing, gagging form of the Goliath and climbed down the ladder, jumping the last three feet or so.   
Carlos was right behind him when a blast rocked the ceiling from up above and the other man was caught in the back wash, falling down the five feet from the top of the ladder and landing in a heap on the floor of the sub.  
Leon braced himself to be blown away by the explosion but only small pieces of plaster rained down on Carlos' prone body. He started to drag the other man back and laid him beside Jordan's unconscious body.  
From up above, the voice came as the hatch snapped closed, "One minute until detonation."  
Leon screamed toward Claire, who was standing at the helm of the submarine. "GO!"  
She hit the switch and the auto pilot clicked on, the submarine lurching so hard that Leon stumbled and went to his knees. The floor shook and metal screamed as they began their escape.   
From the open window, he saw water begin to roll past the sides of the submarine as it gained speed. And then from the open back he saw the black hole of the cargo hold they had left behind and the remnants of the side of the building, half destroyed from whatever explosion had happened.  
On the floor, Carlos spoke, his voice wet with his own blood. "Grenade. In the mouth. Grenade." And he smiled.  
Leon went to him, knelt at his side. Carlos' face was ravaged from the blast, pieces of shrapnel imbedded in his eyes and cheeks. His neck was an open wound, Leon could see the muscles working to breathe around the gaping hole there.   
"Hang on buddy,"Leon said soothingly and looked up helplessly at Claire who came back to join them, "We'll get help."  
Carlos' smiled ironically, his gaze already glassy from approaching death. "You're a..bad liar." He coughed out a laugh, choking on his own blood, "Claire...okay?"  
"Yes,"She whispered, lowering onto his knees and stroking his face, tears on her face, "Yes I'm okay. And you will be too." She insisted weakly.  
"Claire.."He gasped as she lifted his head into her lap and stroked his bloody forehead, "Take care of baby...take care of...Chris..."  
"I will,"She cried, trying to hold it together, "I will."  
He smiled again, coughing wetly, blood gushing over her pants to pool on the floor. "Leon?"  
Leon took his hand, squeezing gently, "Yeah buddy?"  
"Sorry about...shit. Sorry. "Carlos gasped and choked and tried again, "Sorry...friends?"  
"Yeah man yeah,"Leon whispered, tears in his eyes, "Yeah friends..I owe you a Heineken."  
Carlos smiled, his gaze fixing on Claire's face, "More like a..whole case...heh..."  
Leon laughed, crying now, "Yeah a whole fucking case my man. You got it."  
Carlos reached up and touched Claire's face, "Love you...Claire...always love you..."  
Claire started to sob, the sounds of her weeping soft against the loud hum of the submarine's engine, "I love you too..."  
Carlos died with a smile on his face, his gaze locked on her eyes. His chest stopped rising and he was still.  
Sobbing, she closed his eyelids and then leaned down to bury her face against his neck.  
Leon touched his forehead and turned away, staring at the ceiling and taking deep breaths. They hadn't really been friends but Carlos had saved his life. There was nothing he could do now to repay that.  
Jordan groaned, drawing his attention and he turned to her, pulling her gently into his lap. She leaned against him, coughing up blood.  
"Are you alright?" He whispered, looking into her swollen face.  
She smiled, touched his cheek, "I'm okay. Nothing broken. You saved me."  
He shook his head, the tears turning his eyes to blue jewels, "No..Carlos saved us both."  
Jordan looked around his shoulder, saw Carlos and shook her head, tears forming in her eyes. "Thank you.."She whispered and touched Carlos' slack hand, "You're at peace now."  
She took Leon's face in her hands and stroked his skin, smiling through her tears, "He was a good man."  
Leon smiled and then the smile broke down, his face collapsing with anguish, "Yeah..he was a good man." And Leon started to cry, putting his face in his hands.  
Jordan held him against her, his body rocking, his chest heaving and cried with him.   
The submarine shuddered violently as in the distance, the last glory of Umbrella went up in flames and a cloud of smoke. 


	5. Chapter 5

FIVE:  
Aftershocks  
  
Jordan Valentine Redfield was sitting on a blanket sucking on his thumb and watching his Daddy kneeling by a tombstone. He clutched a picture of Jill in his fist like a well loved toy.  
Claire smiled down at the chubby baby and knew that he would grow up knowing the love his father had felt for his mother. It wasn't what he deserved but it was something.  
It had been six months since they had left behind Umbrella for the last time. The news had quickly sucked up the story, destroying what little hope was left for the already dismantled company.  
The government had destroyed the Underground labs and work shops before they had really been able to blossom. The Goliath Protocol had been carefully sealed away in a vault somewhere in the desert, forever removed from the world.  
It wasn't over, she knew it wasn't. But for now, it was peaceful. She had spent most of her time with Chris and the baby, watching him grow, feeling for the first time in a long time, at peace with herself.  
She and Leon had talked about everything and had been able to put the past behind them. She had never aborted his child, she had miscarried it almost before she had even known she was pregnant. She had never had the chance to tell him before it was taken from her.  
She pressed a hand to her swollen belly. He wasn't angry with her when she found out she was pregnant with Carlos' baby. In fact, he was so happy that they had cried together and laughed and begun to heal. A new life, he had said, for a man who deserved to have himself continue.  
Jordan had wept when Chris told her the name he had chosen for his son. He had gone on living for the tiny child even though part of him had died with Jill that day. He saw it in his face when he looked at the baby. But slowly, Chris was healing as well.   
Jordan laughed and picked up the child, kissing his mouth and setting him on her knee.   
They would deliver close together. She was nearly five months along. Claire had entered her six month a week ago.   
Jordan's face was glowing, her belly gently rounded. There was no more hostility between them. But a love for each other was quickly growing. They had a lot in common and were becoming friends.  
Claire looked over to see Leon kneeling beside Carlos' grave, the head stone beside Jill's and admitted that part of her would always love him. But with Carlos' child in her womb, it was turning into a sisterly affection. She knew his happiness with Jordan was more complete then theirs had ever been.  
Leon looked up from talking to Carlos' grave and saw Claire and Jordan smiling and laughing with the baby. He was whole inside again. It seemed a million years since he had put a gun in his mouth and wanted to pull the trigger.   
Since that day, he had gotten married and would soon be a father. He held inside of him a happiness that seemed to fill each day wtih miracles.   
Chris came toward him, smiling. Time had brought them all closer together made them almost like family.  
They walked back toward their families, smiling to themselves.  
Chris picked up his son and snuggled the infant to him, laughing when the baby let out a squeal of delight.   
Leon put his arm around Jordan and placed a hand on her belly, feeling their child kick in appreciation.   
"You ready to go?"He asked, glancing between Claire and Jordan.  
Jordan smiled and put an arm around his waist, "Yeah. I'm ready."  
"Me too,"Claire piped in as Chris looped an arm around her shoulders, "I really gotta pee."  
They walked off into the sunshine, laughing, holding each other. Things couldn't get much better then this.  
As they were climbing into their respective cars, Leon's cell phone started ringing and he had to fumble through his pockets to answer it.  
He hit the button and said, "Kennedy."  
Silence for a long moment and then, "Agent Kennedy, this is Detective Franklin from the N.Y.P.D."  
Leon stopped and Jordan looked at him, eyebrows raised.   
"Yes?"He questioned, his guts turning to lead.  
"Well Agent Kennedy your number was given to me by the FBI as an contact in case of an emergency. And I think this qualifies."  
Leon closed his eyes and said, "What kind of an emergency is it, Detective?"  
A long moment of silence and then, "Agent Kennedy we've got a problem out here."  
"What kind of problem?"  
"Well let's just say that half of New York City is trying to beat down the precinct doors as we speak."  
"Why?"Leon asked but he already knew what was coming.  
Detective Franklin took a deep breath, "Well Agent Kennedy...I think they're.... hungry."  
"Give me twenty four hours."Leon said and hung up already running for the car.  
"Leon,"Jordan called, "What's wrong?"  
Leon was strapping on his gun when she got to the car. He looked into her eyes and said, "There's been a spill."  
Horror seeped into her eyes and she started shaking her head as Chris handed the baby to Claire and pushed her toward the other car.  
"I'm with ya, Kennedy."   
Leon nodded and grabbed the door handle, "Let's go."  
The car peeled away from the curb, racing toward the highway and certain doom.  
A new nightmare was about to begin.   
Claire and Jordan stood watching the streak of red darting into the distance and said nothing, merely held their breath, knowing that their days of peace had just come to an end.  
Umbrella had struck again from beyond the grave.  
  
RESIDENT EVIL: THE GOLIATH PROTCOL 


End file.
